And Then Came A Duke
by borntoflyhigh
Summary: {AU} Her life was awfully tedious, poverty, clearing tables, shining china cups, being a disaster. He was closed off, cynical, leading a life safe from emotion. He paid her to prove that she would never be a proper duchess but who knows what power a bride selection ceremony and his mother's duchess training might hold. Beware though, life often has an ironical sense of humour...
1. Prologue

'**And Then Came A Duke'**

**Disclaimer: **_I do not own Ghost Hunt._

**A/N:**_ Ahem. Yeah so this is my new story which is loosely based on Tessa Dare's story 'Any Duchess Will Do' from her Spindle Cove series. The novel is absolutely wonderful so do read it too. Don't forget to review, I'll be looking out for your feedback and criticisms._

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><p><em>"Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies." <em>  
>― Dorothy Allison<p>

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><p><strong>Prologue:<strong>

**England, 1814**

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><p><em>'Noll,<em>

_I'm returning, I'd promised that I'd be coming back after all this is done. I'll keep it –'_

The letter was worn by age, the edges were fraying and the small creases on it were becoming apparent as time passed – he had opened and closed it many times, sometimes consciously, sometimes in a haze that he couldn't remember.

The paleness of the letter could not undo the situation. Nothing could.

"How long do you think you can hide it?" It was a rhetorical statement made by his long-time friend but he did not want to talk on this. "From her, I mean."

The empty champagne flute glinted on his desk, sunlight filled his room; the black curtains finally parted after months of being shut but the room's occupant could care less.

He'd grown used to the darkness, he thrived in it.

"Oliver," The voice rang out again. "I'm talking to you and you damn well know it."

Still he refused to answer, he wasn't sure he could if he tried to even – it was still too early to broach this subject, too soon. So he broke down every dilemma into small, monotonous words.

"She'll break Lin." He continued writing in the ledgers, counting up numbers but his mind kept on straying to the letter. That note he'd despised, which made him despise himself. "If I tell her, she'll break."

Lin could only run a hand through his hair at the words, aggravated.

"Noll, listen." Lin began determinedly. "You'll have to tell her in the end. Her trauma is inevitable but don't torture her by prolonging the news."

He finally looked up at Lin, eyes narrowed.

"Lin, I won't, not yet and if Madoka is putting you to this stern lecturing do tell your Viscountess that probing into my matters will not end up favourably for her."

The protest rose in Lin's eyes but he subdued it, taming it into his usual icy countenance.

"Do you know what she's doing now?" Lin hissed, striding purposefully towards him, slamming a hand on the desk, upsetting the inkpot that seeped in the letter, flushing it with black. "Do you know Noll?!"

"Lin, calm down, there's no need to – "

"She's finding him a bride!" Lin burst out, outrage seeping from his being. "A goddamned wife do you hear me Noll?! She says it's her project for the summer, finding a bride for him when he returns!"

At this his head shot up, his eyes widening as the statement was doused over him like cold, icy water in January.

Luella was finding a bride for…for a person who wasn't even…a person whom she believed would –

"Lin." Oliver stood up almost upsetting the chair in the process. "Lin we have to stop her…_now."_

"Ah yes, of course." Lin's quiet sarcasm was biting. "Of course we do and the only way to accomplish such a _feat _would be to tell her the truth or else she'll do it. She is _your _mother after all and it has been four years already. Her patience is waning."

"She _needs _to be stopped."

The sentence wouldn't leave his head, she believed that he would return but what she didn't know could potentially hurt her…how was he supposed to tell her that…

He didn't know what to do but something had to be done.

_Now._

"She is going to do something _alarming._ A bride?! Where does she get these ideas from!"

Lin muttered something under his breath which sound suspiciously like an answer to his question.

The two men exited the room but left behind the ink stained letter, burdened with the strain of the last four years.

Some things were better kept quiet, veiled by a basic lie and then more lies and more improvisations - amusing how naturally it came to one when you first started to shroud it with your fabrications.

But this load was his to carry - he would make sure it would no one would share it with him.

'_Noll_

_I'm returning, I'd promised that I'd be coming back after all this is done. I'll keep it, next month if the winds are favourable. I am in your debt, though, I hope you might have done something more interesting than keeping accounts and being the landlord in my absence. If you haven't, I apologize. I hope you will answer this missive. Preferably through Mother if you please, it has been quite a while since I've heard from her._

_Alas, the duties of a duke._

_Eugene._

_Dated 14 of April, 1810'_

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><p><strong>AN: **_So *cough* umm…yeah. I just got into the habit of reading Regency Romances over the past year and I couldn't help but put it into a GH story. The prologue may have been slightly crappy but if you squint, you'll see the catch in the story :) Look out for new chapters!_

_Give in your feedback through reviews! Till next time._

_Cookies,_

**-borntoflyhigh-**


	2. The Plots That Drown Us

**And Then Came A Duke**

_**In Which Sons Are Abducted, Maids Quit And The Wife Is Selected**_

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><p><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>_I do NOT own GH..._

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><p>"<em>Ring the bells that still can ring <em>

_Forget your perfect offering _

_There is a crack in everything _

_That's how the light gets in." _

― _Leonard Cohen_

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><p>"<em><strong>W<strong>__as that Miss Hara, seen dancing with Lord Davis at the Hara's Ball last night? Maybe the church bells will finally ring for marriage of convenience._

_La, we all know that Lord Davis in a passionate marriage is an idea that seems quite impossible. Lord Davis – have no fear, those marriages are 'out de vogue' anyways…" – _The Snitch, October 1809.

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><p><strong>April 1816 - <strong>

Sunlight…

His first, half-formed thought screamed the fact that light was piercing his being, trying to prise his tightly closed eyelids apart, fighting to break through a dull haze that layered his mind, making his body rattle as if the bed was in motion –

Making his body….what?

It didn't take much time for him to calculate that he was drunk…drunk into such a stupor that he couldn't think beyond the obvious fact rotating in his mind. It was, after all, a very common fact that the intelligence of Lord Davis was hardly to be underestimated.

If only he hadn't spent the whole day thinking about what to do with Luella's increasing tendencies towards matchmaking; recently she'd got into a scheme of having one of the footmen patched up with her lady's maid. His mother….really.

As if to rub it in, his bed jerked again, releasing a sound that made him think of wheels creaking when hit by pavement stones. Even the slightest attempt to think drove him mad with pain, all he could see was dull red, a hue that made his head spin violently.

_Good. _The cold voice at the back of his mind nagged. _Keep your eyes closed, whatever you do – don't open them._

Hmm…well he would have no problem obeying that particular instruction, seeing the way his head hurt.

And then a scent wafted in his nostrils, jasmine and expensive soap. Decidedly female…making him see different colours in his head.

Holy Hell, what had he been doing last night?

"Oliver." The voice trilled, calling him agitatedly. "What do you think you're doing?"

Only if he knew…

"Hmmm…" He could only manage that little sound expressing his discomfort.

Any attempts at recollecting the events of the previous night were rewarded with dizziness and then a little of his memories; he had been visiting the tenants, making sure all accounts were correct and no figures had been miscalculated, he had been finishing a treatise on the mind of humans and then went off to dinner with his mother; all the while thinking of how to put her off the schemes she'd been creating of late.

Another slice of sharp, red pain.

The noise of jewels tinkling could be heard in some distant background, the plush surface underneath him jerked violently again as his teeth rattled and all he knew was that he was in some hellhole with a woman, drunk.

Hmm, his thoughts were wry, a rare occurrence.

A very, very rare occurrence…

The truth was that he hardly ever valued wine this much, let alone be inebriated to the state of oblivion – he was so busy each day, carrying out the duties indefatigably, looking to the comfort of everyone except himself.

Not that he would ever admit that to himself in a hundred years.

But then why was he in such a dishevelled state?

"Really." The familiar voice hovered tentatively above his head. "Come now, it was not supposed to be this strong!"

He thought he heard a sigh in another familiar voice.

Out of nowhere, the haze in his mind started to ebb away, letting his thoughts scatter themselves into corner, falling like pieces of a complex puzzle, bringing back his half-dissolved state of thought.

"What the hell…" His first words made him realize that his throat was parched, like dried paper. "What _the _hell." He emphasised, letting one of his hands run through his hair, dishevelling it more.

"Exactly my point." The deep voice caught at his attention and he knew who it belonged to – Lin.

"Oh, you two are incorrigible." The feminine voice was so known to him that he could not understand how he could forget who it belonged to, even in his drunken stupor. "This is so utterly romantic!"

The woman who he'd been fretting about earlier was none other than his mother.

Slowly, he squinted through one eye, the scorching sunlight making his features scrunch up, his hand pulled at the plush surface he had earlier thought to be his bed, it turned out to be nothing more than the carriage seat.

Speaking of carriages, the vehicle was steadily rolling through grassy meadows as he tried to take the reins of his consciousness and that was when realization struck him.

"What is happening?"

The inquiry was unheard by the other two; Luella was steadily embroidering her initials into a handkerchief while Lin was sitting with his head bowed, his fingers intertwined as if assessing a deep problem.

"I asked something."

To this, Lin started violently coughing and after the _fit, _gestured to the carriage.

_Oh._

Somebody had drugged his wine at dinner last night, then abducted him, Luella and Lin, could have taken all of Luella's jewellery by now and were now taking to them to some godforsaken place.

Must have been some old enemies of Gene and had kidnapped him in his idiotic (ah but elder) twin's place. This hadn't happened the first time, once their mansion had been ambushed and half of Luella's jewels had been stolen. And once the tenants had been robbed – but it had never gone this far. Not to kidnapping; surely Gene would have done something exceedingly stupid – not that it was something new.

Sometimes he wondered why Gene was born three and a half minutes before him…

"Gene," He sighed, pinching his forehead as he straightened himself on the seat. "This is all his fault."

His accusation caused a sudden silence to descend upon the carriage, a silence that made him heard the little creaking of the carriage, the rustle of Luella's skirts and he could see that the two of them were gawking at him…

"Oh my," Luella exhaled and shot him an astonished look. "But how did you know Noll?"

How did he know - ? Really now, anybody knowing Gene would know that the man had more enemies, friends and _affaires_ than one could count. To his brother, life was something to grasp and wring the essence out of – unlike him. Not that he had ever been siezed by the desire to change his lifestyle or to make enemies (people were rather thick in the head for him to consider them his intellectual equals) or to have friends (God forbid) or to have affaires with unknown females who had more beauty than thought.

He did not want freedom or the trappings that came with it.

"I'm not a simpleton, Mother." He noticed irately that Lin was also staring at him in disbelief. "What are you staring at me for?"

Lin cleared his throat, trying not to give away his inner thoughts.

"So…" The word was stretched out by his guardian. "You are not displeased at the outcome?"

What was Lin drivelling about? "Of course not. This can hardly be helped. Stop talking nonsense. If only my half-witted twin would stop being imbecilic."

"Noll." Luella was giving him a strange, star-struck look. "You're right! You've finally recognized the depth of your mother's concern, haven't you?"

_Depths of what - ?_

"Noll, can you see my face clearly?" Lin leaned a bit and drummed his knuckles on Oliver's forehead. "Are you sure you don't have the fever? Or is the wine making you talk, though you don't look drunk."

"Lin."

This day couldn't get any worse, stuck in a carriage with two half-wits.

His head pounded against his cranium and he had to bite his tongue from expressing a howl justifying his headache. His vision had cleared considerably and he could clearly see and interpret the scene before his eyes; Lin was wearing his usual black apparel and was seated facing him while his mother was sitting next to him, in all her glory, her posture stiff as usual, her features melted into nonchalance.

"Don't worry Mother." He heard himself muttering to the Dowager. "We'll have us saved in a matter of minutes. Don't exert your emotions. Lin do you have a weapon on you?"

"A gun."

Luella sniffed.

"I would hardly ever need to exert my intelligence or emotions if you and your brother listened to me." To his surprise, Luella hardly looked worried but more like her casual self, maternally meticulous. "Besides over-exertion is unhealthy for me. It will mar my beauty." To emphasize this point, his mother smiled at him before turning back to the knitting on her lap.

_What – ?_

Lin had a gun, his mother was not worried about thieves, highwaymen or any other brigands that occupied these roads…and Lin hadn't taken any action at all against them even if they were thieves.

She was still wearing the amethyst necklace, and the diamond ring and the pearl earbobs…

And then an altogether different scenario assaulted him, wisps of memories that were too fleeting for him to grasp.

There were no brigands behind this scheme at all, no enemies of Gene, nothing of that sort.

Nothing of the sort that humans thought possible.

Only a guardian and a plotting, conspiratorial Duchess.

Slowly, his jaw hardened, eyebrows touched the fringe of his hairline and eyes turned to slits.

_This _had better not be what he thought it might be.

"Tell me." He began as calmly as possible, turning his head to look out of the small carriage window, at the scenery rolling by. "Tell me that this is none of your foolhardy scheme Mother…"

Swivelling his head to stare at his mother and Lin, all Oliver could do was restrain from shouting at the diabolical woman next to him.

The aforementioned woman replied by inhaling evenly and merely concentrating on the crochet embroidery.

"Tell me, that this has nothing to do with Gene's future marriage." His voice was deceptively pleasant, polite event as if he was discussing the weather. "Tell me that Viscount Lin, my so-called guardian did _not _drug my wine last night."

Luella's face darkened and Lin looked uncomfortable, an aura that he was seldom surrounded by.

_Let them be scared. _

"Tell me that we are not going to the place where I think we're going…"

Lin cleared his throat and Luella fidgeted, her furrowed eye-brows the only sign of anxiety.

"Tell me."

Luella sighed resignedly and placed a gloved hand upon his own, a slow, mischievous smile lighting up her face, an expression that he had come to develop a strong aversion for.

_Oh no. _Oh no. _Oh no._

"I am sorry, Noll." She didn't even sound one bit of sorry, the woman who could switch roles like a chameleon changing colour, from loving wife to model duchess to mother to a general planning his next strategy on the battle-field. "But we're going to _the _village."

His eyes turned heavenward. Lin made a sound like a choked groan of protest.

"No." He wasn't sure who had croaked the word, him or Lin but Luella assiduously ignored them and went on looking determined.

"And this time I'm going to find my Gene, the bride that he deserves upon his return."

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><p>"<em>A true lady's place is in the parlour – sculleries are for the servants."<em> – A Lady's Guide To Deportment by Lady Draconia Embers.

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><p>"Wow…"<p>

Pretty girls burdened by tragic circumstances are probably the only characters that the authors of bad novellas have in their mind when they create a story, which makes it seem as if pretty, feisty girls burdened by poverty are the only ones who can bring a man to rights.

Ha.

Nobody brings a man to rights.

Mai Taniyama watched the ducal carriage roll past as she continued the work that she'd been doing as soon as she learned not to talk unnecessarily and walk properly, without breaking things.

She wasn't even thinking about where she was, what she had been doing or how much money she had in her basket – the carriage was so elegant that she could only stare after it, jaw slack as it crushed the grass, passing over the stones so calmly as if it could not sense the turbulence in her day. She forced her eyes to squint outside the grubby window, trying to soak the sunshine in her bones even if she was standing in the middle of a cold, dank basement; shining china cups as a punishment for breaking one earlier.

"Scrub harder Mai."

It would have seemed strange to anyone, but Mai was used to talking to herself, enjoying the silence in the scullery after all maids had gone to their respective houses for lunch.

Her life was the official definition of drudgery; and she lived in a village surrounded by miracles. Women came here to wear off the town's excitement and enjoy the fresh sea air but it had become almost a routine for one of the ladies to get married by the end of the month to the man who seemed least likely to be her match.

Well, you could take the youngest Miss Hara who had been the odd one out of her family, she had been oddly beautiful and oddly reserved, the perfect idea of an English miss and yet the dashing, debonair flirt of the ton, Lord Yasu had taken her as a bride.

To be exact – they had eloped…

Then Lady Ayako married the tavern's musician, Houshou, against her father's wishes; after their marriage Takigawa had discovered that he was the ancestor to some ancient aristocratic line and was now an Earl. Oh and not to forget, Lady Madoka – the cheerful patroness of the village had married the hard, war-worn Viscount Lin.

It seemed that the village was full of magic for everyone except her.

"_Harder."_

She was _destined _to be the scullery maid for the village inn until she was too old to carry the cups back and forth.

Just take today for an example; her Uncle who had been ironically blessed with four daughters and no sons had beaten the youngest one for taking ill and Mai had got a few bruises on her wrists for trying to save the ten-year old. Then she had to work in the poultry before she could leave for the tavern and then she broke an expensive cup which lead to her current scrubbing.

"It's not fair." Mai felt her shoulders sag as she held up another cup for examination. "I mean, it's not fair for the other ladies to wear gloves and silk and satin and what not and for me to scrub cups. Really."

She frowned – was it just her imagination or was the cup disagreeing with her.

But then again, everything was legit when you were a twenty-three year old servant, spinster.

"No!" She rolled her eyes at the inanimate object. "It's true and you – " she jerked an accusing finger at the cup " – know it's true. If you had an Uncle like mine you'll rather run for the sea than stay there."

The cup twinkled in the afternoon light as if asking her why she stayed – well, if that was the case then she would answer it anyway.

"Well, I stay because he gives me money and I'm saving it so I can start my own business." Mai bit her lip. "And if I leave he'll probably kill my cousins and we can't have that, can we?"

She nodded to herself.

"All done!"

She would have continued her mindless babbling if she hadn't heard sounds in the corridor.

"You can't fire her Jack!" The voices were meant to be whispers but she heard them loud and clear, followed by the scuffling of footsteps. "You're not being reasonable."

That was the voice of the inn-keeper's wife. Who was going to be fired?

"Julia, we're a bit short on funds and I can't fire anyone else – they all are too important."

"But she makes the most wonderful tea in this village! You can't replace her!"

Mai felt something inside her burn…were they talking about her?

"She broke another cup this morning and she's too clumsy with things."

More whispers she couldn't decipher.

"But you know the drunkard her Uncle is! She means well! If we don't let her work here she'll – "

One thing she hated more than dependence was pity. All her life she'd tried to be brave just so she could be normal and not pathetic in the eyes of the villagers. All she'd wanted to was do well, not just _mean_ it.

She felt something wet in her eyes…

"Julia that is enough. Please look to the lunch and send Mai to me."

"Jack but – "

She had gone and made things worse – she had made things more bad by her stupidity, she could never be better, she could never make her dream a reality…she could never do _anything._

"Now."

The final words of the innkeeper seemed to trigger something in her and she blindly ran towards the main room, trying to calm her harshly beating heart and to stop her tears as they slipped down. She couldn't be weak, she couldn't be lax – she had to do something, she had to be brave, she had to do something other than overhear their conversation.

What she didn't know was that destiny wasn't on her side now.

Her bare feet rattled against the wooden surface as she ran towards Mr Hustle's room but it caught on a piece of stray rope that held sacks attached to the roof.

Her foot slipped and so did the sack of sugar – high up from the ceiling.

And that was how the inn-keeper found her, sprawled on the floor with sugar crystals all over her, shining in the afternoon light.

Damnation.

"Mai?!" Mrs Hustle, Julia, rushed to her side, her forehead wrinkled. " Are you alright dear?!"

"I'm alright." Mai's joints creaked in protest as she lifted herself from the floor, breathing hard from the impact. "I'm alright. I'm alright."

"Of course she is!" The inn-keeper looked at the floor, fury in his posture. "My sugar, my precious sugar!"

The sugar…it had been the inn's reserve for a whole month and she had just gone and spilled it.

Stupid. Stupid. _Stupid._

"I'm sorry Mr Hustle." Mai hurried to her feet, eyes widening in horror as she saw the damage she had made. "Oh my God."

Mr Hustle was silent for a whole minute until his eyes sharpened and a wry smile tipped his mouth upward.

"You'll pay for it."

"I – I'll…"

"You'll pay for this sugar with your month's salary Mai. No discussion."

Mai felt something hard hit her and suddenly all she could feel was anger boiling in her stomach. How would she buy the family any food without means any other than her personal savings, how would she do all the repairs around the small house…and – and winter was approaching, how would she keep the girls warm, how would she manage it all. Her cousins were not accepted by the village children, she couldn't send them to school, she couldn't…

Her life was, she realized with dawning horror, a series of couldn'ts.

"B-but – b-but!"

Julia gasped.

"I quit."

It was a whisper, barely controlled fury, but the innkeeper heard it.

"You can't Mai!" Julia protested, rushing to stand between her husband and Mai. "You're too…._poor." _She finished lamely.

"I'll manage."

God knew she couldn't.

But she couldn't hear anybody, she couldn't hear reason at all, everything was blurred around her – or maybe the tears of her eyes were distorting the whole world.

"I quit." Mai raised her head, her apron scrunched in her hand. "I quit!"

And before she knew where her fury was leading her, she was standing outside, the grass tickling her feet, sunshine soaking her bones.

She screamed in frustration – letting the tension out of her system; one cry was all it took for the tears to resume.

That was the turning point in her destiny.

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><p>He thought he heard someone scream…<p>

And that was when he decided that even the high-pitched scream of frustration would be better than listening to his mother make all kinds of plans for Gene's bride.

"You can't do this." He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice but the Dowager Duchess hummed absently as if could care less for him. "This is absurd Mother."

She didn't seem to have heard him at all.

"You just have to choose a girl, Noll!" She chirped and even while making the ridiculous sound she looked every inch of the rich lady. "I can train the girl to be the rightful duchess of Shibuya."

Oliver thought he heard Lin groan. Honestly, he felt like groaning too – since panicking seemed so unlike him.

Her cheerfulness despite the confines of the castle made him sick to the pit of his stomach.

For the past four years he'd been trying to deter his mother from doing what she was doing right now; but as usual his mother thought she was next to Merlin the magician in making impossibilities to possibilities.

"Why did you kidnap me?" He asked annoyed, trying not to think about the end of his mother's schemes. "I want to have no part in your scheme, why don't you go on some ball and choose a wife for Gene yourself?"

Luella huffed.

"Pssh!" She wildly waved her embroidery at him. "I know nothing about the tastes of men and besides you are Gene's twin, you know him best, don't you?"

He refrained from answering which made his mother turn to Lin, who looked as if he was slowly dying from strangulation.

"Am I not right, Lin?"

"You are. Your Grace." He looked as if he was trying to make himself believe that. "As always…"

"There Noll, see? Even Lin agrees."

He, couldn't see…not at all.

_The _village was a retreat of on-the shelf spinsters who came here to either wear off scandal, look for a husband or enjoy the fresh sea-air. All in all, he calculated, the place would be hell for him.

It's name was one that no man dared utter for one simple fear; holy matrimony.

"Mother, you know that Gene would want to select a wife for him, _himself_." Oliver pointed out, he did not believe in rationalizing with idiots but this whole situation was a farce. And he was desperate. "I'm not sure if our interference will be appreciated."

"Of course." She nodded sagely. "That is why I'm taking you with me. You are Gene's twin – you know his mind. And besides if that depraved, dissolute friend of yours – what was his name - ?"

"Lord Yasu?" Lin supplied.

"Yes, yes the flirt. Well he met your Masako at the village and they had a love match, did they not? If Lord Yasu can marry and stay monogamous, so can your idiotic brother."

He wanted to point out the simple fact that Masako had never been _his _to begin with and that their engagement had merely been one of convenience. He had known her since childhood and she would have made a perfect marchioness.

God knew why he'd broken it off, then...

"And Lin." His mother rounded on Lin. "He met Madoka there didn't he and Ayako, she met Houshou at that place – " Turning back to him, Luella pressed her lips into a firm line. "I tell you Lin, that place is magic. All you have to do is choose a girl closest to your brother's choice for a bride, see?"

Oliver wasn't quite sure it was a bride that his brother wanted. Mistresses were easier and of course, less permanent.

The carriage halted and the door was flung open by a footman who extended a hand to Luella and carefully, putting up the haughty, aristocratic façade, the Dowager Duchess of Shibuya descended the carriage.

The village was beautiful – idyllic, the sea stretched on like a beautiful cloth of green and blue, the grass was freshly cut and every piece of nature was in its rightful place.

Except the inn's sign…

"Bulls and Roses." Lin raised an eyebrow at the askew sign and faced Noll. "This brings back memories."

He merely raised an eyebrow at the look in Lin's eyes.

"Hmph." Luella surveyed the place with a critical eye. "So this is where you will select a wife for your brother, take care Noll." She then smiled and Oliver almost lost the heart to say no to her, _almost._ "- though I don't doubt your choice. You are my _perfect_ son." With a kiss to his cheek, she floated to the entrance, waiting to be announced by the footman inside the inn.

"The Dowager Duchess of Shibuya." Luella went inside, her spine straight, looking every inch of the Duchess that she was. "Viscount Lin." Lin, shaking his head, followed in her wake, looking tired but eager to see the village again.

"Lord Davis."

This was the part he despised the most – smiling for the reassurance of insignificant others, life would be so much easier if people didn't expect him to be cheerful and smiling like Gene.

The mention of his brother made him sigh but he was skilled at maintaining appearances.

So he entered the hell hole with a smile on his face, knowing that not even one of those ladies could guess that it was a mere stretching of lips over bared teeth.

The inn was filled with ladies; blonde headed, blue eyed, red headed, brown headed, pretty and normal, lots of them, sewing, reading, playing the pianoforte, copies of an etiquette book lying haphazardly on the floor as a contented poodle chewed on them, all in all none of them were interested in paying attention but his immediate entrance caused a sudden hush to fall upon the place.

Women gawked; as usual and he knew that his handsomeness had done it again – made _him _invisible. This place was filled with spinsters all vying for a husband but he could care less, they were not for him – heaven help him if he ever decided to marry – they were for Gene, who was…

"I am the Dowager Duchess of Shibuya." Luella's clear, imperious voice broke his train of thought.

At this there was a rustling of skirts, a uniform curtsying and the familiar chorus of 'Your Grace' by everyone.

Luella nodded approvingly at the crowd of women.

"And I am here to find a bride for my son Eugene Davis, the Duke of Shibuya – "

The ladies immediately looked up at him – ears visibly perking at the very mention of marriage.

"My son, Oliver, here – " At this Luella turned to gesture at him. "-will select one of you to be trained as the rightful duchess of Shibuya since Eugene is currently taking a tour of the Continent and will be returning home this month."

The silence was so intense; every girl in the room had frozen – one of the ladies had pricked her finger on her needle but she was looking at him in rapture, ignoring the blood on her finger, the servants had paused in mid-air, eyes wide at the sudden announcement.

"Go ahead Oliver." His mother turned to him, smiling wildly. "Go ahead my son."

Wild thoughts rang in his head; he couldn't risk the future of a woman like this, his mother would be aghast if she knew, and all for a person…all for a person.

He should have told her…Lin should have told her…somebody should have told –

And that was when he saw her.

She was nondescript from the distance when he spotted her; hair sparkling for some unknown reason, dressed in drab grey, walking in through the back-door while clumsily fingering the door knob, her head bowed in – misery – he presumed.

He didn't see her like that – he saw her as a panacea for everything.

She was perfect, poor, unfashionable, clumsy, high strung; everything the exact opposite of a duchess, a touch too pretty but that didn't matter; he couldn't be too picky when it came down to this.

He knew how to end this matter, this was perfect, almost too easy, too calculated – he could smirk at the easiness of the plot that he had just hatched.

Let his mother deal with this _disaster._

"I know who I'll take." He raised a finger and pointed, amidst the gasps and surprised squeaks form the women around. "I'll take her."

She swung around and their eyes met over a distance – a rich shade of brown clashing with his blues and for some reason something inside him…

_Shifted._

Her jaw didn't go slack with his handsomeness, her ears didn't perk up at the mention of anything and she simply looked at him and the corner of his mouth tipped downwards as if displeased by something in his face.

A rebellious one – his smile turned smug – even better, even more difficult to handle.

His mother looked like a dying gold-fish, striving to splutter and Lin was shocked, his face struggling with a particular expression – epic.

The girl looked up at him, her eyes wide, her mouth finally parting in astonishment as if she was trying to reel from some intense impact.

Just perfect; drama _they _wanted, drama _he_ would give.

"I'll take her." His finger hadn't lowered, it still pointed towards her, his voice echoing. "She's perfect."

_She's perfect._

One word – and that was when all hell broke loose.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_Review? Please? :3_

_Edited: 3-1-'16_


	3. The Words That Entangle Us

**And Then Came The Duke**

_**In Which He Says She's Perfect, The Mother Denies Being Merlin, And She Makes Him Smile**_

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><p><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>_I do NOT own Ghost Hunt._

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><p>"<em>In a cruel and imperfect world, she was living proof that God could still create perfection." <em>

― _Rex Reed_

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><p>"<em><strong>H<strong>__ave you heard the rumours? _

_Lord Davis is out of town and sources have it that he's on a search for the most perfect bride for Duke of Shibuya. We pity him…both the Duke and the Lord – searching for a perfect woman is for lack of a better word - tiring. Viscountess Lin has been rather tight-lipped about the event giving her penchant for gossip and we hazard a guess that the Dowager has did it again – another nefarious scheme, mayhap?_

_So why does he not search for the imperfect one – won't it make matters easy?" _The Snitch – April 1816.

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><p>'<em>She's perfect.'<em>

She didn't know how long she had stood over there and stared at him as if trying to make sense of the world; there was commotion around her, indignant shrieks, shocked gasps even a few women swooning but she didn't notice that.

Her raptured gaze was fixed on him.

All her life she'd been trying to – she'd been – and he'd just taken two words; two perfectly, wretchedly, lovely words that made her insides knot and her heart beat faster.

'_She's perfect.'_

He smiled in her direction; it wasn't a full smile – his eyes were aloof, his jaw too sharp to bend into one of those but it was a small tip of his mouth; so elegant that it seemed hard to miss even amongst the coldness of his features.

The small, smug smile…

And she would have stared at him more, enchanted, if the laughing hadn't started.

Oh, the laughing…

She couldn't understand who started it first; maybe it was Lady Hara at the back; tittering behind her fan or maybe it was the surprised chuckle of Lady Embers or maybe it was the giggling of the Cowper triplets who were doubling over, hands poorly muffling their giggles, laughing as if it was a great, big joke.

And Mai woke up…her hand flying to her cheek as if someone had just slapped her.

It _was_ a great, big joke – surely, she hadn't been about to think that this aristocrat, _this _mortal Adonis of a lord was about to think of her as perfect. She hadn't been so naïve as to believe that rubbish, had she? She, who had sugar over her, stuck to her hair – she who was dressed like the church mouse of the village, she who was so _imperfect._

"Noll!" The Duchess turned to her son in a flurry of muslin and lace, one hand on her bosom as if she would die from cardiac arrest if he didn't say something. "What in heaven's name are you saying?!"

She had – Mai realized with dawning horror – she had looked up at him as if he was the centre of universe and she must have looked with longing to have drawn such a reaction from the ladies – she must have _believed_ him.

"She's a maid!" Someone from the crowd exclaimed.

"She's ugly!" That was Lady Embers. "And s-she - she has no right to be a duchess!"

She trusted him.

_Stupid. _Her mind screamed at her. _Stupid and imperfect._

And then the chanting started – it was in her mind, raging in her bones as her eyes widened and her lips parted in horror.

Oh no.

_She had _believed _him._

_She had thought _she _was perfect._

Oh no…

Somebody pushed her towards the young Lord and she stumbled blindly, her cheeks flushed and heated, her breath coming in short, quick gasps. She had been so stupid – how could she be so stupid? Hadn't she learnt what dreaming led to? Didn't she know that he had just made a joke at her expense just to amuse the ladies, a type of flirtation.

He steadied her; his hands around her wrists as if he would do something if she tried to resist his authority. And she let him, too shocked to say let alone protest – she drowned out the noises of the others, the lethal whispers, the fluttering of fans by the mothers of the girls who'd come here to marry.

"Bring a chair." His grip on her wrists was strong enough to hold her, when her knees felt like water. "She needs to sit."

Footmen rushed to do his bidding.

They thought that she had destroyed their chances of marrying – but how could she with who she really was. A maid – hah – he was more than ten ranks above her according to society's edicts – she couldn't be a Duchess, damnation!

She was a walking disaster…she was…she was…

"Drink." He pushed a glass towards her, his baritone voice strangely comforting amongst the whispers and the high-pitched shrieks. "You'll be needing your speaking abilities."

The water burned her parched throat but she did as he bid; her voice too weak to say anything – unshed tears burned in her eyes, she had been so humiliated, so mocked and yet she had played into the web like her sixteen year old self.

"Oh God." The Duchess was whispering to herself. "Oh God." Her fan fluttered but Mai couldn't hear maliciousness in her tone – she was merely shocked. Her blue eyes were wide and her parasol lay abandoned on the floor; she looked near to fainting but Viscount Lin hurried to her side and tucked her hand in his elbow, patting it comfortingly.

"Mother," Lord Davis pushed another chair towards his mother. "Sit down."

The Duchess dropped into the chair and then closed her eyes.

"Your Grace." One of the elderly footmen inquired. "If you wish I can remove – " the footmen looked over at her, his disdain merely a façade, Mai could have sworn he looked sympathetic. " – if you can wish I can remove her from the premises."

"Do stop, Phillip." She raised a hand, eyes still closed. "This…has just caused me a little taxation, that is all."

There was a pause and Mai felt her breath catch in her throat at the silence of it all…

The Duchess inhaled shakily and then opened her eyes; which glinted now, determinedly and turned to the crowd coolly as if the earlier drama had never taken place.

"Well." She coughed and then beamed beatifically. "What a pleasant turn of events." At this Viscount Lin nodded gravely and the ladies stopped tittering or mocking her but simply looked at the Duchess, stunned. "But anyways, my work here has been finished. We'll be leaving now. Come now – " The Duchess looked down at her, questioningly.

"Oh." Catching the meaning, Mai cleared her throat. "My name is –"

"That is assuming you do have a name." Besides the Duchess, the sulking lord muttered, his bored look fuelling her anger.

He had strode in her life, turned it upside down, bought her to the brink of tears and was now looking bored?!

"I do have a name, my lord." Gritting her teeth, she glared right up a him – daring at him to speak one more word. "And that isn't 'sullenness' or 'ice', unlike some people I know."

"My advice, dear girl, is that – " The Duchess was about to say something when he cut in again.

"I was not aware of the new naming standards." He feigned nonchalance so expertly. "Shouldn't you be called 'dumb' or 'idiot' by that system?"

He – this high-handed man of a -

"Now children – "

"I hate you." She spat out and stood up. "I hate you!"

There was a silence in the hall as she reached up to his height, her eyes wide in anger, her pulse skittering but his answer was one-worded, scoffing.

"Clearly."

She growled low in her throat at his monosyllabic answer.

"You can't just storm into my life and expect me to adapt!?" She poked a finger in his chest. "You – sir, need to learn some manners!"

He looked away from her, warily.

He was handsome, too much for his own good, the air around him was majestic as if his arrogance was passable for someone with his wealth and looks and the bored, impatient look coupled with the lazy smile he'd given at the beginning was just a façade. Beneath the pretending exterior was a meticulous, cynical, frozen man who planned with frightening precision.

She wasn't subdued. Instead she looked up at him, returning his look.

If he was going to humiliate her, she might as well make the day memorable for him.

Ending her speech with a huff, she turned to the Duchess who was looking at her in sheer astonishment.

"Your Grace." Her curtsey wobbled, unlike the graceful sweeps of all those ladies. "My name is Mai and I am the tea-maid of the tavern."

"O-of course." The Duchess regained her composure and nodded at her. "Now that we're done with trivialities, let us proceed to important matters." Turning to the crowd of slack-jawed ladies, the Dowager nodded coldly. "Thank you for your time."

The Duchess turned away from her and floated outside, as if still in some sort of stupor – her spine straight despite the drama she'd been put through.

Viscount Lin threw her a look of recognition – of course he knew her, she'd been at the tavern when Lord Yasu had tried to revolutionize it to a brothel and the Viscount had stopped him. Plus she'd also made tea for the guests at Viscount Lin's wedding to Lady Madoka.

She grinned at him – or tried to, without hurting her jaw.

Lord Davis was still looking at her, his assessing gaze raking over her and she could almost feel the hairs on her nape stand up in consciousness. Pity, she couldn't return the favour.

"Come Noll." The Viscount bent his head to fit in the tiny exit of the tavern, gesturing to the young lord who finally tore his gaze away from her and followed him out. "And do bring Mai with you – " He smirked and beckoned to her.

It seemed as if the young lord wanted to protest but decided against it, striding outside, waiting for Mai to follow him.

And that was when the waves slid over her; what he had just offered to her…

She could be a Duchess, she could make a future for her cousins, she could do so many things after…

A voice stopped them.

"You can't be a duchess." Lady Hara walked to the centre of the room. "This may be a village of miracles but there are some limits to God's beneficence."

Lord Davis stiffened but Mai turned around, calmly to face her. This anger she could handle, this coldness she could bear.

"You can't be one, child. He'll be throwing you out, penniless, the moment he spends some actual time with you."

_This is not for you – he'll be throwing you out…_

"I know…" Her voice was hoarse and her head spun with the turn of it all– they hated her, the ladies who were so cordial to her were now her enemies. "I know I can't."

She turned around to the assemblage, who was staring at her in shock…she had done so many things today, broken cups, spilled sugar, talked back to an aristocrat in front of a Duchess Dowager and created a whirlwind – the last thing she could do was talk back to a lady for whom she'd worked for so long, watched all her daughters getting married; Emilie, Masako, Leila…all of them to the best of people.

She would do it. She would be herself for once, even if it meant regret later.

"I can't be perfect." She inhaled sharply and raised her chin too look at them. "But I can be myself – and he should want me for that. Whoever he is."

* * *

><p>"<em>A lady retains her composure. Rudeness shows a lack of breeding." <em>A Lady's Guide To Deportment by Lady Draconia Embers.

* * *

><p>"A warning was due Noll." His mother huffed indignantly as he handed her in the carriage, vigorously fanning herself. "Heavens, if you decide to do something on a whim next time - <em>do <em>tell me. I hate to be surprised. Now where is that girl?"

"I'm here, Your Grace." She was the devil herself, appearing beside him almost magically, beaming at the sun and wriggling her bare toes against the grass.

Didn't she own a pair of shoes?

He handed her in the carriage and was surprised when she turned to him and murmured a soft-thank you, completely ignoring the fact that she had just declared her hatred for him inside a public inn.

Shaking his head at her mood-swings, he climbed inside the carriage and shifted in his seat, turning to look outside, his mind sighing in relief.

Now he'd just have to meet the chit's parents and get this over with; once in London he could regain his mental strength by avoiding his mother. Well, she would have a good time with the new distraction he'd bought her.

Thinking of distractions; what was that girl – ?

Mai was plastered to a window, her eyes wide in astonishment, lips parted in a smile of wonderment – gawking at the scenery, even waving to some local children who waved back just as enthusiastically.

If the duchess training went on like this, his mother could very well wave good-bye to the idea of a daughter-in-law; mission accomplished.

"Duchesses don't gawk, dear child." Luella's mortification was evident as she took a firm hold of her collar to drag her away from the window. "Duchesses don't show emotion – they are similar to statues in that context, emotionless, controlled, confident…"

"Like your son." She had the nerve to interrupt his mother with a deprecating comment about him – he would like to see how mother dealt with this...cyclone of a woman. "Though he isn't a duchess."

The change in Luella played on her face; from mortification to attention and then to agreement.

"Like my son." To his surprise, Luella shrugged, her lips tipped in half a smile. "He isn't a duchess, I assure you."

Beside him, Lin coughed to smoothly hide his laugh.

Oh _very _funny.

"Anyways." Luella turned back to Mai. "Nor does a duchess talk back unless it is a matter of reputation. Do you understand Mai? From now on your life will be a set of rules and if you can do it in three months – "

_No…not so very fast._

"One month." He didn't turn to look at his mother, God knows what he'd do just to keep her amused. "If you can make _her _a Duchess in a month, Gene will marry her. This was your idea, wasn't it?"

"What?!" Luella whipped her head to look at him. "A month?! You're giving me a month, young man when I am your –"

"A month and no more."

"I am not God, Noll." She huffed in amazement. "Nor am I Merlin, for that matter – a month is too less and you know –"

"When have you denied being Merlin? Or God? Let me write that down somewhere for future reference."

"Oh do stop being and idiot, young man. This is all your brother's fault!"

"I hardly understand why _I _have to suffer the consequences."

"I'm going to show you what a mother can do. And you'll see. Hmph."

"And I…" He had had enough of this nonsense, if his mother didn't stop assuming that she would be Gene's bride, he would – "I am going to exile you to Craid Castle. With a decrease in your monthly allowance."

Insert dramatic gasp from his mother.

"That's my house!" Their conversation was interrupted by Mai who pointed to a falling shack and shrieked. "Oh do stop! That's my house!"

The carriage stopped and Mai hopped out of it, her skirts swishing wildly behind her, her hair unpinned and flying riotously behind her.

His mother was much more graceful, her diabolical nature suppressed.

"That girl." Luella who had not yet seen her house, tsked chidingly and descended, her feet landing on the gravel path. "She needs to learn so much."

Lin chose not to get off and instead waved them off and they left him alone – following Mai to the cottage she had so fondly declared as her house, it could have fit inside the parlour of their home in London.

It was the epitome of poverty. No wonder she wore such shabby things.

"She lives in there?" His mother looked as if her nerves would burst, her weak inquiry making him sigh – Luella had this flair of drama that no one could rival. "In that – that…"

Mai, who had been quite oblivious to their conversation, turned around, grinning widely as she put a hand on the low railing entrance that led up to her house.

"Welcome to my humble abode." She was about to open it when one of the railing fell off, leaving her hand clenched in air. "Uh…" Her cheeks flushed with red and she averted her gaze, her smile faltering. "Do come in Your Grace."

Luella cautiously entered the place as if it would come down if she touched it; not that he blamed his brother – similar thoughts rang in his head. He had an idea of her being poor but this was much more – where did all that money she earned from the tavern went to?

And he soon discovered the answer as they entered the shabby living room. Wine bottles littered the cracked floor.

She was supporting a drunkard.

His mother made a bee-line for an upturned sofa and hastily settled herself on it, her eyes wary of her surroundings and he used the edge of his boot to turn a box over so he could sit.

"Be careful, my lord." Mai chirped, a fake smile plastered to her face, evidently to hide her embarrassment at having such guests at her house. "My house is not used to handling hefty weights such as you."

"I can see that." He smirked at her. "Things you sit on are broken. Substantial proof." And he watched as she turned to a deep shade of red whilst picking up two cups from a dirty shelf in one corner and starting to brew tea.

He couldn't understand how he could so simply turn her words into teasing comments but it happened and he wasn't uncomfortable – she was just easy to tease - he discovered.

And that shade of red didn't look exactly bad on her…..it was quite becoming on the contrary, turned her eyes a deeper shade of brown, like...

"We would like to meet your parents, Mai." Luella said, oblivious to everything else. "Just to make matters final."

She had been brewing tea but she paused in mid-air, her smile frozen.

And then there was a commotion.

"Mai?!" A thin, lean woman entered the room, her hair tied back by a grey cloth with sweat on her forehead and a very thin child of six in her arms. "Is supper ready, you do know that – "

The woman turned to him and Luella and she blanched.

"Guests?" Her horrified whisper made Luella fidget a bit in her seat. "But we don't have anything to -?"

Mai's expression softened and she took the child from the other's arm and took her arm, steering her away from the room, whispering fiercely in her ear.

He saw the woman's expression clear and she hurriedly took the child back from Mai's arms, nodding rigorously, almost running out of the room.

"I'm sorry." Mai's back was to them, her hands busy as she poured tea into two china cups. "That was my aunt and my younger cousin, we usually don't have guests, so…"

Luella was about to say something consoling when another commotion was heard and this time, Mai was the one who blanched, her skin bleached of its colour.

"Uncle." She whispered. "Oh no."

A tall man swaggered into the room, his hair greased back on his forehead and his teeth yellow, an aura of ugliness surrounding him. He was dragging a boy of ten from the collar and hollering.

"This child can't do a single thing!" He bellowed and Oliver could have sworn he saw the cups shake in their saucers. "What good is this little vermin if – "

Oliver cleared his throat, his eyebrows raised – so much for expecting hospitality. Striding towards the man, he disconnected the grip he had on the child's collar. The scared child scampered off into some other corner while the man stared at him suspiciously.

"And who might you be?!"

He could have punched this man for talking like that but his control was taut and his patience was so huge that he could almost tolerate this buffoon and his hollering.

It was apparent that he had a large impact on Mai's life; from the hour he'd known the girl she hadn't even let fear shadow her face and now she was wincing with every word he yelled.

"I am Lord Davis." He said with practiced authority. "And I am here to talk to Mai's parents."

"She 'as no parents." The man sneered. "I'm 'er family…"

Mai was an orphan?

This got maudlin by every minute.

"Well then." Luella had stood up from her chair and confronted the man, her parasol in hand. "I am here to take your niece to London. To become a Duchess. The Duchess of Shibuya to be precise."

To his surprise, he started laughing.

"'Er?!" He roared, slumping into a moth-eaten sofa. "A Duchess! Ye Lords give this woman some sense! She's going to make a duchess out of – " He threw another assessing look at Mai, eyes full of disdain and mock. "'Er! That piece of –"

Oliver's patience – he was beginning to discover – was after all, not so broad. There were limits.

"That will be quite enough." Turning to Mai, he issued another command. "Mai, go pack your belongings, we'll be leaving in five."

"Wait." Mai halted, turning to watch as her Uncle stood up and beckoned to her. "Come here."

Mai hesitated – he could see it, she tortured her lower lip before taking a cautious step towards her uncle.

"Do you see 'er hand?" His uncle took her hand and rested it palm up, gesturing for the aristocrat to examine it. "It is the best hand in this world – it can do anything on the farm, dig, plough, clear the manure out of all places..."

"Uncle!" Her whisper was one of horror, mortification, her cheeks burning.

Mai's hand was blistered, the nails jagged at odd angles but the skin was pale beneath the blemishes, soft, smoothly angular, a wrist made for jewellery –

His train of thought was interrupted by the buffoon.

Now was not the time to indulge himself in rhapsody.

"I'm not letting 'er go." He shook his head adamantly. "Not until you pay for her. Money, my boy."

Bloody Hell.

Luella gasped, clutching at his shoulder.

Mai looked as if she could dissolve into the floor.

He felt an odd type of rage bubble inside him; indignation at this man's dirtiness – of how he was treating his niece as if she was a clock on the mantelpiece, replaced with money.

"What –" His voice was chilled. "-are you referring to?"

The man shrugged, lighting a cigar. "I'm saying that you pay me."

Pay him? People like him who maltreat –

"Uncle, stop." Mai turned to him in desperation. "My lord, please leave – I'm sorry I can't come with you but as you can see I have – "

He had no choice.

"How much do you want?"

He could have sworn the man's beetle-like eyes glinted at the mention of money.

"Five pounds." The man lifted one hefty shoulder. "Fair bargain."

Five pounds? All he wanted was five pounds in exchange of a niece? Wasn't he concerned about what he might do to her? Wasn't he aware of the dangers of London?

It was a good thing Lin hadn't come or this garbage would have been playing harp in Hell.

"Five pounds it is, then." Oliver reached in his pocket and threw a velvet pouch at him. "Go rot in Hell."

He turned to Mai but she was transfixed, her wide eyes beholding him in a heroic light, he could almost feel her admiration coming off her in vibes and he resisted the urge to smirk. "Go pack, Mai. You look like an idiot, standing there."

His mother nodded to him grimly and departed off for the carriage leaving him behind with Mai's uncle whilst Mai packed her belongings.

After five minutes, Mai was rushing down the stairs, a battered valise in hand, struggling with a pair of shoes.

"Come," He strode out of the house as she followed him out. "I have to talk to you."

Once they were standing in the garden, Oliver removed her from the vision of his mother, almost pushing her under a large willow tree.

Now he could put his plan in action.

"I have a plan." He began and she nodded at him. "My mother – " He searched for the right words. "You see my mother has this habit of seeing people well married and happy because of her. She suddenly had this godforsaken idea that my twin, the Duke, needs a wife…a social, demure wife with finesse."

Mai nodded again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"She kidnapped me and bought me here with the excuse that I could select a wife for my brother when I know for a fact that my twin does not want to marry."

"So…"

"So I want you to be a disaster." She blinked in confusion at him. "I want you to be everything a duchess isn't, I want you to become a failure."

"Oh."

"That is exactly why I selected you, according to my hypothesis, Mother would leave you well alone by the end of this month if you manage to discard all those teaching of finesse she is likely to deliver. Once you do that, I grant you the finances to support yourself without your Uncle's help. You do follow me, don't you? You are perfect for this plan. You are –"

"Imperfect." She finished, her face devoid of emotion.

He didn't try agree with her, couldn't even bring himself to say that even when he knew that was the reason

"I will give you a thousand pounds."

He saw her pupils dilating at the mention of thousand pounds.

"A thousand pounds?" She whispered, looking up at him.

Their surrounding was so idyllic, a large willow tree, light autumn breeze, the sky cloudy but letting just the right amount of sun through.

And they were talking business, weaving lies.

"I'll do it." She looked up at him in determination. "Disaster, failure, imperfection – that I can be. I can do this."

"Good."

And he was about to say something else when he heard footsteps.

The child whom he had rescued earlier was running towards them as fast as he could; attaching itself to the hem of Mai's apron.

"I won't let you leave!" The child declared and on closer attention, Oliver discovered that it was a girl, with cropped, redhair. "You can't go!"

Mai looked near to tears herself.

God deliver him from emotional women.

"Belinda, calm down." She patted the girl's head soothingly. "I'm going to earn money, so we can –"

"I'm not letting you go!"

"Lady Belinda." Oliver called her name and the child looked up at him in fear and astonishment, eyeing the sapphire stickpin in his cravat. "We need to leave, it's getting late - "

The child scowled at him and he sighed knowing that he'd have to resort to other techniques.

Techniques he hated.

And then he smiled, like he did at the ladies on every grand ball, bending over the little hand in respect.

In under a minute, the ten year old was flushed to the roots of her red hair, touched by the gesture and observing the sapphire stick pin with interest as she scampered off into the woods, leaving him and Mai behind.

They walked towards the carriage in silence, Mai was staring at her house in silence but he could sense her depression, she wore her heart on her sleeve, really.

"Thank you, Belinda rarely has a reason to smile." Mai then turned to him, a strange glint in her eyes. "You didn't kiss my hand."

He shrugged lightly – it was surprising how he'd fell in such a pattern with a girl who was next to a complete stranger. Not even his social equal.

"I know exactly what that hand has been involved in."

And she laughed, the sound echoing in the valley, cool and clear as the sun set in the far West.

* * *

><p>By seven that evening, Mai had a long list of what Duchesses do and do not do.<p>

Her mouth watered as the innkeeper set a pot of steaming stew on the table just beside the turkey.

On the way back to London, they had stopped to change horses and have supper by which time Mai felt like her mind would burst if she didn't get food quickly enough, leaning slightly on the table, she sighed.

Twelve hours, barely twelve hours and her life was on its way to change.

"A Duchess," The Dowager's voice rang. "- does not keep her elbows on the table."

Mai straightened herself, but let her fingers drum on the table as the servants filled her plate.

"A Duchess." The Dowager was one diabolical woman; sweet one moment and a conquering general the next. "-does not cause unnecessary commotion, cease that drumming."

Mai sighed, blowing her hair out of her face; beside her Lord Davis calmly filled his glass with claret, not bothering to look at her.

Somehow she had this insane urge to see him laugh.

"We need to work on your phonetics." The Duchess sipped her soup delicately. "Your aitches need to be improved, so that all traces of country can be removed and we also need to work on your wardrobe. If only my thick-headed son would give us three months to –"

"Mother." The young lord's voice was all authority. "This topic is closed for discussion."

"Hmph! You'll see." Then she faced Mai. "You need to learn drawing room French, interior designing, cutlery handling, menu preparation."

"And what does this battalion of servants you roam around with do, Your Grace?"

She was sure she heard Lord Davis chuckle lightly.

"Do not interrupt me when I'm addressing you." Though the order was strict, Mai could see that the Duchess did not mean any meanness. "Servants are not our minds. We are the minds and they are the hands."

Mai sighed again before concentrating on her food. It was useless arguing with the Dowager, she had a way with words that made your own ones a noose around your neck.

Instead she thought about a thousand pounds.

A thousand pounds – enough to take all her cousins away from her Uncle, enough to start her own shop, enough to send Belinda to school –

She hadn't been homesick but now in this strange place, with strangle, sparkling people - she suddenly felt melancholic.

Her cousins...

God knows how they'd be; no one would rescue them from Uncle's abuse, no one would be there to tend to their blisters.

"You're excused Mai."

Through her blurred vision she looked at Lord Davis who refused to meet her eyes but kept on eating as calmly – though it was nice of him to excuse her from the table at a time when she so wanted to cry.

Hurriedly, she pushed her chair back and ran to the nearest ladies' room; brushing tears away furiously.

* * *

><p>He didn't know why he was following her but he knew one thing; women were dangerous when there state of minds was unstable.<p>

Take his mother for a fact; she'd abducted her own son just to ease her matchmaking tendencies.

Thankfully, he did not find her planning suicide, but instead sitting on a stair with her head between her knees, not sobbing.

He sighed mentally – he was in no mood to deal with crying ladies.

"I'm sorry." He hadn't announced himself but it seemed she knew he was there. "I shouldn't have run away but I don't know what just happened and I…" Her voice broke a bit. "I'm sorry."

He didn't say anything but just observed the night outside the small window next to the staircase.

"It just hit me at once. It won't happen again."

She stood up and he glanced at her face out of the corner of his eyes – it wasn't red which meant she hadn't been crying but just homesick.

_Good. _

Suddenly his eyes caught something twinkling in her hair, reflecting the moonlight and he reached out thoughtfully.

Carefully he picked out a crystal of sugar and then more and more.

With his thumb he brushed some of it away from her mouth, almost thoughtlessly – he was tired and his brain demanded rest from him but he wasn't thinking. It was a frozen moment, coming and going too quickly.

Had she dumped a sugar sack on her?

_The idiot._

He looked down at her and then realised that they were standing too close, too close to be proper and she was looking up at him, lips parted slightly, his thumb against the corner of her lip.

And he was sure they both felt it, the little shock of it.

She stumbled away from him, eyes flitting wildly, as she almost ran out of the room leaving his hand in the air, clutching little pieces of sugar.

The world returned in a flash.

He turned away too and strode out of the room, not at once stopping to analyse what had just occurred but stashing it away in some corner of his mind.

It was a moment not to be repeated.

Never. Again.

But all he could hear were sirens, screaming danger.

And this time it was bent on destroying him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_Thank you for the overwhelming support! I'm so glad you all like this idea! Hoping to hear more from everyone!_

_Cookies~_

_Edited: 3-1-'16_


	4. The Dreams That Design Us

'**And Then Came A Duke'**

_**In Which Transformations Occur, Lunch Is An Experiment And He Listens To Her Dreams.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Ghost Hunt.**_

_**A/N: **__Thank you all for your reviews! I was so glad. I just haven't been able to write because of a great tragedy that happened in my country; terrorists seized a school in one of our cities and have killed and greatly tortured more than 100 children. All of them so young that I shudder every time I think of it and the whole country is in mourning. So I've been disturbed by the events yeah._

_**Thanks to my guest reviewers:**_

**Preety: **Thank you! Have a cookie :)

**Landmine:** Here's your update! Have a cookie!

**Elm:** I giggled at the old hounds metaphor and have even used it in the story, see the asterisk in scene 2. As for Gene, I don't want him back (I still love Gene, no doubt about that) but if he appears in Mai's dream it'll be complicated to write in reference to the time period and all. Don't worry, dream about the mischief-making rascal XD Thank you! More cookies coming ahead!

**jordycat2000,** **Dutchangel1979, Ferb O.** **Oche, AmyNChan, yukihime88, KassieMarie, ErinAR, Iloveanimex and maixnaruforever159 – **_Thank you guys. I haven't been able to PM due to above-stated reasons but thanks for the support. Enjoy the virtual cookies._

* * *

><p>"<em>You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,<em>

_And get pats on the back as you pass,_

_But your final reward will be heartaches and tears_

_If you've cheated the guy in the glass_." – Dale Wimbrow

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>A <strong>__certain lord is back in town and the young maidens have extended their__visits to the modiste – who knows; the young lord might be selecting a wife this season after all and it wouldn't do to appear behind the new vogues, would it? La, we all know how Fate works for bachelors – running from marriage one moment and leg-shackled the next._

_Though it is rumoured that he has brought back with him a young woman whom he is bent to hide away from the town until Lady Mortram's Yule Crush – when all secrets shall be out. _

_How sweet and touching – the way the arrogant lord quickly assumes the role of future brother-in-law…" _The Snitch, April 1816

* * *

><p>Oliver couldn't remember a time when he'd been more at peace with himself… or more tired for that matter.<p>

There was an eerie glow to everything, the shadows played across the meadows, swaying to a mysterious tune, a tune he couldn't decipher and it was quiet in the carriage, the type of quiet he liked, with the night just beginning to give way to lighter streaks of blue.

He wasn't a poet – but there were times when he was contented and those were the times when he let his brain retire for a while. He was tired – not too much – but tired enough to think like his twin, enough to describe everything to his satisfaction; rationality be hanged.

_Gene…_

He sighed and let his head rest against the back of the seat, he couldn't sleep at all but insomnia was hardly the most important issue, it wasn't even new, the inability to sleep without waking up in cold sweat in the dead of the night.

Oliver discovered that he had been going over the same paragraph again and again; this type of restlessness was disconcerting; but he didn't lower the book.

Inadvertently, his mind wandered to lighter topics.

The carriage was filled with the delicate snores of his mother and the mumblings of Lin as he tossed to lay his head at a more comfortable angle. They were about to reach London but both his mother and his guardian showed no signs of waking up; particularly his mother who had wrapped herself in a shawl, with her head on his shoulder, a furrow in her eye-brows.

Luella did not sleep peacefully – she never had after Martin's death.

He had endured this entire episode just to keep _her _happy and amused. God knew she'd seen too much of tragedy – what with a miscarriage and a still birth after the twins, his father's untimely death at the young age of thirty-five and Gene's sudden wish to tour the Continent, she'd been left alone with an emotionally wilted person like him.

Not that she'd ever wailed her misfortune; she changed but stayed the same – she came in a room and the room was suddenly like a theatre. His father had loved her for this, loved her with a single-minded devotion that made him roll his eyes or made Gene sigh exasperatedly.

His mind switched to Gene.

Gene had inherited this flair of drama from Luella and had often wished for some dramatic thrill to be there in the family; like what if Father had a mistress or what if their mother had a lover. Both the ideas while not wished with ill-nature, were, needless to say, absurd. His father could never look at a woman besides their mother and Luella only had words for Martin. The love match of the year, theirs had been called.

The girl from the village would keep his mother happy for one month – of that he had little doubt.

Thinking about the _girl _he let his eyes wander nonchalantly towards her - Mai was sitting in front of him, not sleeping like their companions, her eyes riveted on the dew-streaked window, tracing meaningless patterns on the glass and smiling tremulously at the scenery that unravelled. Shadows danced across her face and her hair had come out of its pins, tendrils framing her face which she frequently tucked behind her ear.

And then she did the most unthinkable thing – she too looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, feigning an indifference and her gaze caught his quite accidentally.

Her eyes widened minutely and he was sure he heard the small hitch in her breathing.

_The imaginings of tired men._

Unable to avert his eyes smoothly without letting her know that he _had_ been looking at her, he simply maintained the eye-contact as if daring her to break it.

And then she blushed; not in coy way other girls did – she simply looked at him and gulped noisily and let the shade cover her face.

"You shouldn't read in this much light, you know." Mai finally whispered, careful not to wake Lin or Luella. "You'll weaken your sight."

He took out a pair of spectacles from his pocket and put them on, letting her carry the conversation.

"Oh, so your sight _is _weak." She looked at him with sheer curiosity and then smiled in her strangely open way. "They look nice on you, so I don't think it matters."

He raised an eyebrow – trust her to say something completely disarming.

He'd almost expected something flirtatious to come out of her mouth but with each passing hour it became painfully apparent that a) she was not coy b) she couldn't flirt to save her life c) and she went about smiling at inanimate things and people as if they were free, doling them out at everything and everyone.

It irritated him – he, who could probably write a book full out of the subtle innuendos and flirtations of the young ladies in London. Those girls could take a thing as harmless as the weather and twist it around to something suggestive.

It annoyed him, for one person to be so unworldly; when around her people were caught up in lies and material possessions.

"Just _nice?_" Oh he wasn't disappointed by her lack of compliments to his reading glasses; he was just testing her, to see how she would react to a flirtation.

If she was going to London she would have to learn to distinguish between a flirtation and a compliment. Naïve and gullible as she was…

"Well you _are _very handsome."

He wasn't about to gloat so openly. "So you think… I'm handsome." He summarized, smirking slightly while he looked out of the window, finally setting the black journal on his lap, closed.

"Isn't that what I –" She suddenly gasped in disbelief. "Oh my God, I – I, t-that is – I mean –" She stammered, looking torn between abashment and incredulity. "The ladies at the village thought so, I overheard them saying it."

He thought for a moment and then unashamedly fixed her with one of his lazy stares. "Well – they have _very_ good taste."

The reaction to that lazy, 'quite provocative' (as said by the unabashed Lady Madoka) stare was not enrapture or swooning or simpers as the other girls of the town did.

Mai gaped at him, incredulously.

He watched, amused by the proceedings as her mouth opened then closed, jaw hanging quite literally, making a sound of disbelief and then closing it again rather abruptly.

"I can't believe it – " She gasped, jabbing an accusatory finger in his direction. "You're such a – a narcissist!" She fiercely whispered.

He shot her a wry look.

"What is the world coming to?" She wasn't talking to him, Mai was staring at the window and rambling incessantly. "You _so _know you're handsome, all those ladies in London have filled your head with their nonsense. I _can't _believe it!"

She huffed, running her hand through her hair and then leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes and scowling openly.

Exactly ten minutes later, she cracked open one eye and looked at him.

"I hope your brother isn't like you."

His smirk dimmed and he started, looking up at her with a stony look.

_Rules. Rationality. Reserve._

There were rules about him; no matter how much he talked to her – they were rules he needed to set and the first one was to never ask him about his twin or his life; period. In fact he was just about to tell her that but instead he said:

"He's my twin. What did you expect."

She thought for a moment, one finger tapping her chin. "I don't think he's like you – even though you are twins, being alike in nature isn't necessary you know."

For half his life, he'd been so conscious about the fact that his twin was so unlike him, with his wide smile and his magnanimity and his aversion to silence. Half his life, he'd been expected to grow up and be like Gene but he'd never done that – he never had enough to fill in the place of his brother, maybe he was too selfish or just too attached to silence to let it go.

"I'd like to imagine that your brother is a kind, caring person." She said slowly, staring at the roof of the carriage. "Somebody who smiles, is easy to talk to – I don't like silence, that's what has gotten me into trouble so often, my babbling."

She'd never know that he hated mirrors – that he might have been harbouring a notion that Gene's death had occurred because of some wish coming from deep, dark within him. That he might have wished ill-fortune upon his twin – he hadn't exactly thought that but it might have –

"He is." Oliver agreed so flatly that she looked up at him, her head cocked to one side while he looked away, watching the sky change from violet to a pale orange. "Kind and compassionate and wild and generous. Everybody loves him."

_Loved him._

Mai would never know that his reflection was a burden on his conscience. And he'd never tell her – so the whole point was moot anyways.

"And you?" He had been staring out of the window but he swivelled his head to face her – what did she know of him, she barely had any idea of what his disposition might be. "Aren't you kind and compassionate and wild and generous." Mai quoted his words, her eyes sharp and keen. "I have an idea that you might be."

_Wild – and him?_

He scoffed internally; here was stupidity…

"You have too many ideas."

Her laugh was soft; not a giggle but an amused acknowledgement of his insult.

His look was too composed altogether, his eyes were stones and he was talking to her as if a rock might talk to something living; if he'd been rankled in the least she would have seen the incredulity in his eyes. If, God help him, she had said the same thing to Lin or his mother they'd have a choking fit – or worse – a laughing spasm over her comment.

"I'm not kind or compassionate." His was another flat response, brusque along with aloof . "Nor am I wild and generous."

She simply smiled at him, her eyes twinkling merrily – challengingly.

"And say –" She was enjoying the fact that she irritated him – the idiot. "Say if I prove to you in a month that you are all those things and more?"

"Your real aim, need I remind you," He was being caustic but he needed to keep her away from everything he was so determined to hide. " – is to deter my mother from her real aim."

"I know." She cheerily replied, her whisper rebounding in his mind. "I can do that without much thought, actually – and now I'm going to prove to you that you are everything you think you are not. And if I do that, which I know I will, I'll take an additional thousand pounds."

The girl was stupid if she thought that was a prudent wager. "Fine." He said, knowing she was bound to lose. "But it's not a wise wager."

Her smile didn't dim. "I know it isn't." she caught his gaze, holding it there. "But it's one worth taking and I do know that."

And they both turned away at the same time; leaving his head with a hundred thoughts.

_Kind, compassionate and wild and generous._

He'd never been all those and he'd never be, she was just a naïve village girl who had some warped idea that she might change him with her charm (he rather called it gullibility). She didn't understand – nobody would ever understand.

His only consolation was that he'd be saving a thousand pounds…

* * *

><p>"<em>When catching a husband, maidens should take care not to encourage men too much lest they develop fanciful expectation or develop a pride that may crush a woman. A wise wife is one whose husband is wrapped around her finger. The true lady, remains at a distance…" - <em>A Lady's Guide To Deportment by Lady Draconia Embers.

* * *

><p>He left as soon as they arrived at ThrushCross Castle – the main estate for all of the previous Dukes of Shibuya and their families.<p>

And she was disappointed – though she couldn't understand why…

Oh he had acted fine, just like the perfect gentleman – he had even handed her down the carriage, his gloved hand smooth against her clammy palms and although she could descend on her own, he silently insisted, the dominance radiating off him in visible vibes.

"Mai." It was almost a warning; besides she had a feeling that the Duchess had insisted he do this

So she had no choice but to take his hand and come down, feeling much like a runaway princess.

And what a fine scene she had prevented from being created; as he was handing her down, Mai almost lost her balance and was about to topple and fall right into his arms but she thankfully regained her balance and steadied herself.

The Dowager on the other hand – did not even have the good graces to hide her disappointment at the not happening of such a scene. She even rolled her eyes when Viscount Lin suggested that Lord Davis should find another residence for the sake of propriety while Mai stayed here.

"Pssh." She had waved her fan nonchalantly at the Viscount. "The old hounds* can think anything they want, I'm not letting my son go anywhere because of stupid propriety. He's old enough to discriminate between desire and logic and Mai won't want him, not when she can marry a Duke. Isn't that true Mai?"

Mai had coloured at the breezy remark and Lord Davis had coughed discreetly to remind them that they were both standing in the same place.

"What are you blushing about?" The Dowager had spun around and fixed her gaze on Mai and Lord Davis, who was still coughing. "Noll – I fail to get the message you're trying to convey so please stop coughing. If it isn't obvious I'm having a serious conversation."

Lord Davis had rolled his eyes and informed them that he was going with Lin to his estate. Hastily, he had departed with Viscount Lin in his wake, looking rather impatient.

She had squinted at their departing forms and pursed her lips, muttering something along the lines of 'run-all-you-want-I'm-going-to-get-you' – she hadn't even spared Viscount Lin from her commentary, saying rather sneakily to Mai behind the fluttering fan:

"He's impatient to see his wife. Hmph, he'd never say that though, but I know how Madoka has him wrapped around her finger. Wise woman that she is."

Then she turned to her, snapped her fan close and tapped Mai's shoulder with it.

"We need to discuss some things before we head off to the estate." The Duchess had a determined glint in her eyes and if past experiences were any indications – that was highly dangerous.

"Such as?"

"Rubrics." The Duchess said firmly. "You will address me as Your Grace. We'll be working on your phonetics, your aesthetics, your fashion sense, your accomplishments and we'll need to take an appointment with the modiste –" She began counting the items of some imaginary list. "- the milliner, the glove shop, the accessory store and let us not forget –"

_Groan._

Mai could only feel pity for the girls who were raised up in such a formality as London – it must've been pretty hard – surviving in such a place, with so many rules hanging above your head. Thank God she was not actually becoming one…

"Posture." Tap, tap – her fan tapped both her shoulders. "I'm going to introduce you to the servants, so we need to work on your posture. They must _not _know about your identity, let me see if I have something that may remedy our current situation – a shawl perhaps, but you must not speak unless I tell you."

"Okay…" Mai couldn't help but stretch out the word – the Dowager certainly was ready for anything, it was if she'd almost anticipated this turn of events.

The Duchess who had been examining and correcting the shawl so it covered the front of Mai's shabby gown sharply looked up.

"That is an abominable word – don't use it in my company or any company at all. 'Alright' or 'Fine' work just as well."

Mai wanted to groan but then she remembered that she had other techniques – better techniques; well if she wanted those thousand pounds she'd better start working for them.

_Mission 'Don't Be A Duchess' began now!_

"Okay." She answered cheerily, watching as the Duchess narrowed her eyes at her.

"Hmm." She continued walking, seeming rather deep in thought. "We shall begin the experiments from today."

Experiments -?

The Duchess started walking faster having tossed the bag into a harmless bush nearby and Mai had to stride faster to keep up with her.

"What type of experiments?"

The Duchess stopped and whirled around to face; the parasol doing a perfect pirouette.

"We're going to transform you." At Mai's horrified look she smiled mischievously. "Physically I mean, you _are _a bit toopretty for a maid and I know that Noll's noticed that too – "

"What?!"

"Oh come now." The Duchess scoffed. "My son may not be very verbal but I understand him best, he grasped your hand when he was handing you down, I noticed it, he threaded his fingers through yours and – "

"He did _**no**_ such thing." This family was unbelievable! They were so insane up there that it was a wonder that nobody noticed. Flushing, Mai tried to recall how exactly he'd handed her down, he'd simply taken her hand and – "You're making up things!"

"Maybe." The Duchess lifted one shoulder as if she could care less. "I do believe you're right but he _was _looking at your hair all the while, I swear, a bit like –"

Her voice caught in her throat and she stopped suddenly, and a blank look came over her eyes, fazed, as if she was not with Mai but stuck in some other place.

Mai knew what this look meant; she must have made a similar face at the inn last night; nostalgia.

It was gone as soon as it came over and the Duchess came back on Earth, blinking roughly and then sighing as she squared her shoulders. "Anyways we are going to exploit your prettiness and if Noll is affected then Gene would be head over heels with you."

_Good God!_

"You're going to use Lord Davis to see if I can be suitable for the Duke? That's deranged Your Grace!"

The Duchess turned towards her a second time but this time it was not to rebuke but to simply swing her hand in front of her, invitingly. "We're here at the main house and I think you should have some time to ogle at the grandeur."

And when Mai looked at the house – she realised that grandeur with capitals couldn't even begin to describe this palace.

* * *

><p>"Is this velvet. Holy cow! Is this velvet?!"<p>

Her cries and questions were unheard by the Duchess as she proceeded towards the main hall, barely glancing to look back at her.

_She was walking on velvet._

_**She **__was walking on __**velvet.**_

Her shoes felt like a violation now.

"Mai you're making me feel embarrassed." The Duchess stalked back towards her and pulled her away from examining the fabric of the carpet.

"I'm walking on velvet." Mai's jaw ached with her smile but she couldn't quite help it and she spoke as if she was in a daze. "I'm walking on velvet."

"I repeat that you're embarrassing me – and here I had always thought that this hall was sparsely decorated."

_Sparsely decorated?!_

"Sparsely decorated?" Mai's voice was hoarse from awe. "You think this is _sparsely decorated_? Then what did you think of my house?"

"Did I ever give the impression that I thought it was a house? It gave me a stroke when I saw it dear child."

Mai blinked a few times; the main hall's windows were stained and the ceiling was the finest piece of designing she'd ever seen. There was a fountain in the hall and a grand fireplace where a scattering of chairs and couches were adjusted as if in a hurry but looking rather elegant.

Another spectacle greeted her eyes and she immediately stiffened.

A long row of servants had assembled and bowed obediently when the Duchess walked through, going to stand on one far end, greeting each servant by name.

"And may I present my guest," The Dowager gestured towards her. "Miss Taniyama of Sussex who will be staying with us for a month. Her parents have very graciously consented to this stay and she is to be looked after like a member of the family. I hope I don't have to repeat this information and I hope you will all conceal her identity until I say otherwise." At this she threw a sharp look at a group of maids in the left row.

With this, the Duchess smiled firmly and Mai took it as her signal to walk.

Each servant bowed to her and Mai felt flustered with the attention she was receiving.

"Wendall the Butler. Ma'am."

This was an elderly man of about sixty who looked as forbidding as Lord Davis, with his white beard and impeccable manners, Mai almost felt small.

"Mrs Merriton the Housekeeper. Welcome, ma'am."

Mai nodded cordially at the housekeeper and was tempted to shake hands with the plump, friendly-faced lady but restrained hearing the Duchess's words in her mind.

There were so many faces to be remembered.

"Amelia."

"Rose."

"Fleur."

"Mary."

She could only nod in wonderment, her vision blurred, thoughts dazed – she was like these girls who were curtsying to her, this was her real identity, this was her true status. The whole Miss Taniyama thing was a charade, a façade and she was a fraud.

But she was doing this for her thousand pounds and she was doing this for her cousins at home.

Blinking back tears, Mai straightened her shoulders and beamed at everyone.

"Antoine the Cook, madame – wishing you a pleasant stay." Turning to the Dowager he said. "I 'ave lunch all ready if you please, Your Grace."

The Duchess made a great show of squinting at the time-piece even when she knew that it was not yet noon.

"I'm afraid not yet Antoine." She nodded at all of the servants. "Thank you, please resume your tasks. Fleur, you follow me."

Fleur was a tall girl about her age but much, much prettier with her doll-like blue eyes, blonde hair and a sort of airy grace. She, Mai discovered on some polite questioning, was a French dressmaker who designed all of Your Grace's clothing.

"And France?" Mai questioned eagerly. "Is it a beautiful place?"

Fleur's eyes lit up visibly. "_Oui demoiselle! _All the lights and the busy streets – _zere eez_ a spark in the air. London I tell you _eez_ a pale comparison to it!"

The Dowager, however, was inclined to silence.

"Fleur, that is enough patronizing of the English. Mai stop talking as well, my head is aching."

The three of them crossed many rooms and even climbed a grand staircase before taking the left route which probably let towards the hallways. Carpeted in thick, soft rugs… decorated in portraits of ancestors with marble plaques and artistic portraits.

She stopped in front of one of them.

It was a young man like Lord Davis – too much like Lord Davis with the same black hair and the same sharp features but there was a life around him, charm and an open humour that the painting had captured. He was leaning against the fireplace elegantly, one hand stroking his chin, staring into the glowing embers, his mouth twisted into a smile.

And that was when she realized that she was looking at the portrait of the Duke of Shibuya.

"Oh _that _is my son." The Duchess had seen her stop and now stood beside her. "Eugene. Gene for me, Your Grace for you till you're married to him. He'll be returning back this month."

She would never marry this man – one thousand pounds weighed on that.

"So _this _is the Duke." Mai contemplated, recalling the conversation she'd been having earlier. "He does look very nice."

She was getting delusional because she thought she heard Fleur cough.

"Hmph." The Duchess stood back to examine the portrait as if something was missing in Mai's account. "An exceptionally fine, young man he is – with the wealthiest appellation. Pray, from whom did you get the first-hand account of my son from?"

"Uh –" Mai bit her lip, there, she'd done it – displeasured the Duchess. "Naru – _oh_!"

_Naru?!_

_Oh…_

She wasn't supposed to call him by nicknames she had created in her head! This was London! She couldn't have the Duchess believe that she was – _oh no_ – flirting with her _other_ son!

"Naru?" The Duchess raised an eyebrow interestedly. "I think you just distinctly called Noll as… Naru something."

"I was just clearing my throat you see," Mai made great show of clearing her throat and making it sound like she was saying 'Naru'. "Just clearing my throat."

"Oh stop making those noises." The Duchess huffed. "So now that you've met my depraved, dissolute, drowned in debauchery son, I would wish if we moved. Let us proceed then."

Mai took one last glance at the Duke as if committing him to memory, waved to the ten dukes of Shibuya before him and started following the Duchess again; though she couldn't help thinking if Lord Davis had a portrait of himself somewhere in this house, she'd like to see _that._

They stopped in front of a room with exquisite panelling and Mai knew that this room would be the start and eventually the end of her new, shiny life.

Fleur opened it.

It was a big room, not large but just the perfect size, with a canopy bed in the far end and amber coloured curtains and upholstery. There was a full-length mirror in one corner which had gilded amber leaves on the outer frame and a wooden closet on one side.

The room was magnificent, it was cheery and the windows gave the perfect view of the scenery outside, rolling meadows and a light breeze.

"Is this Your Grace's bedchamber?"

The Dowager coughed rather violently and Mai watched as Fleur discreetly withdrew from the room.

"I would never choose anything as mediocre Mai." Mai frowned – if this was mediocre and sparsely furnished then what would the Duchess' bedchamber be like? She had no wish to find out – this room seemed as if it was alive with light streaming from the windows and the cheery air.

"This is your room."

No. Way.

"No way!" She gasped, her eyes wide and her mouth open in shock.

This finery couldn't be hers! She'd spoil it – or worse – she'd break something with her clumsiness!

The Duchess was mortified. "Get a hold on yourself. Child, this is your room and the dressing is adjacent to the bathroom. You'll find all clothes hung there."

"Wow."

"There's no need to be bucolic in your thoughts. Don't stare at this room as if it is the King's bedchamber."

"But this is –"

"Fleur!" The Duchess called cocking her head a bit. "Do come here and show Miss Mai to the dressing."

They entered the dressing which turned out to be another room, this time filled with clothes and shoes and rows of jewellery boxes.

Mai fingered the satin on one of the dresses – it was then that she realized how shabby her gown was.

She would not wear any of this.

She could not wear any of this…

"But I- I…"

"We have to get to work, it's time for lunch and Noll might be here any moment." The Duchess set about walking down the row of clothes, checking each one and frowning as if deep in thought. "Fleur, pull that bell and summon Amelia and May to ready a bath, we need to fit her for an evening dress – she must go to lunch in all finery."

Fleur did as she was told and then ushered Mai to a chair, having made her sit down in front of the mirror. The Dowager came over and made Mai stand again, much to her agitation, as she circled her, brows pulled together.

"What can we do about you, Mai…" It wasn't a question, just a trailing thought and Mai was sure that Fleur made a sound which meant that there wasn't much they could do. "What type of transformation, the innocent kind perhaps."

Fleur made another sound that negated this kind of transformation and Mai simply looked from the Duchess to her maid, confused.

"The coy kind, the shy kind, the smart and flirtatious kind." The Duchess looked to Fleur who was shaking her head as if saying no to everything. "But that wouldn't suit her would it? No – something, something – "

"Ethereal." Fleur interjected in her half English, half French accent. "Angelical. Unworldly."

The Duchess intertwined her fingers in muse and Fleur made Mai stand in the light.

"Can you see it, Your Grace?" She gestured to Mai. "She is willowy and she is just beginning to lose her thoughtful innocence, though she is just twenty years –"

"Twenty-three." Mai interrupted, promptly.

Fleur frowned at the new knowledge but waved it away.

"Oh, but you see my general point, do you not." Fleur turned her around. "Her hair is long and her eyes are big – she is rough on the edges but we can soften her angles. We can give her a halo."

A halo? They weren't serious about this.

"Why you're right!" The Duchess clicked her fingers, inspired. "Go on and give her that look. Are Mary and Amelia here yet?"

Mary and Amelia came with measuring tapes and brown boxes full of gowns – after being bathed, fitted, corseted and fitted again within an inch of her life came the gown selection.

"Pink looks hideous on you Mai." The Duchess remarked distastefully, throwing aside a beautiful pink silk. "Don't even go near that colour in the future."

As if she had worn any colours in her life other than brown or grey.

"I never had any pink ones to choose from Your Grace." She assured. "Nor will I have in the future."

Why did the Duchess own so many gowns – they did not look like her hand-me-downs, but seemed newly made in fresh, bright colours for young people.

"Do these belong to one of your daughters, Your Grace?"

The Duchess who'd been fussing over a black crepe gown that she insisted should be burnt suddenly stilled and looked up at her with widening eyes, as if drowning in some memory.

Fleur too turned statue-like, her beseeching eye-signals not making any sense to Mai.

The spell was broken when the Duchess inhaled.

"That is none of your concern, child." She straightened, her mouth turned down in a scowl. "Fleur get to work, Amelia take an appointment with Madame Reveilles. We don't have time to waste."

Everybody fell to work and she was left to wonder why the topic had saddened the Duchess…

After much debate with Fleur, the Duchess finally chose a white coloured one with crimson lace and frills on the sleeves and the neckline, which was, bolder than anything Mai had ever worn. The sleeves were simple and fitted her wrists perfectly and while she wasn't looking, Fleur had slipped a pendant around her neck.

And when Mai looked in the mirror again – she couldn't decide what was happening.

The girl staring at her was like her; brown eyes and brown hair but with cheeks which were just beginning to sharpen into the angles she'd always wanted and her eyes deeper due to the crimson shades.

She couldn't even begin to describe what they'd done with her hair.

It wasn't tidy exactly and yet it was; pinned tightly in a braid with a few strands allowed to escape and they did look like a halo. And yet under all this show, she could still see herself; eyes wide, tongue-tied, jaw slack, twenty-three, maid and spinster.

_She was changed… but she was still the same!_

"Well, well, well." The Duchess smiled at her servants before dismissing them with a wave of her hand. "You certainly are a bloomer. Never mind that you're a late one."

A soft bell was heard; might have been for lunch and Mai watched as the Duchess wrapped a shawl around her hair, gave Fleur time under a minute to fix her hair and turned to her.

"Meal times are the true test of a woman's character."

Mai raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"Don't laugh – this is precious knowledge." The Duchess was trying to be stern but Mai could see that her mouth was twitching. "When we go down for lunch, we shall meet Noll and if the experiment works, well – hallelujah!"

Mai simply nodded at the Duchess' retreating form – never mind that the poor woman had no idea of her true intentions…

Lunch was going to be a disaster.

_The first disaster._

* * *

><p>As it turned out - Lord Davis had decided not to join them for dinner…<p>

"He informed me that he intended to go to White's*" Wendall announced in a solemn voice. "His lordship said that he was – err – a bit behind the news of the ton."

Mai couldn't help but be disappointed again. To think that the Dowager and her maids had gone through such pains to ready her.

"You mean to say," The Dowager's voice was deceptively calm and cool, signalling to Mrs Merriton for the salad dish. "That Noll has taken the carriage all the way to White's just to catch up on _gossip?_"

"With all due respect, Your Grace, I-"

And why was she disappointed; it wasn't as if she was going to marry _him, _was it?

"Very well." The Dowager picked up a knife to slice the pie. "If my son wishes to run away and get himself drunk into oblivion while listening to the ton's gossip, then _so _be it. You may leave, Wendall."

The truth was – Mai thought rather wryly as she picked up a spoon – that she was not going to marry anybody.

"I'm sorry Your Grace." Mai felt rather bad for the Duchess, she looked so forlorn and unhappy. "I didn't mean to cause you any inconvenience, I just-"

"Oh you haven't caused me any inconvenience. In fact I think the experiment just might have succeeded." the Duchess sipped the wine from her claret. "You've caused him problems and since Noll has never had problems like you – he's running away."

This summary nettled Mai – she hadn't asked that high-handed man to choose her, had she?! And to think that _he _had upset her life so much that she hadn't been able to string two words together lately and she felt all blue.

"And what problems have I caused him?" She stabbed the salad dressing viciously. "I did not ask him to choose me, he could've bought a –"

The Duchess sighed.

"I just said that the experiment was a success– but you've irritated him and he's keeping his distance."

"_He_ irritated me first!" Mai was seized with an urge to be rather petulant. "This is so unfair. He riles me up and is so thick in his big, aristocratic head that the jerk won't even think of himself as mortal! Of all the narcissistic, arrogant, high hand…"

She trailed off as the Duchess eyes lit up and a cunning smirk lined her face.

_Stupid. _Stupid. _Stupid._

"Aha." She said triumphantly. "So _you _have been talking to Noll?"

"No." Mai stretched the word– the jerk could stay away all he wanted and she wouldn't give a whit as long as he gave her the thousand pounds. "I hate him –" She bit off, talking with food in her mouth. "I don't care what the _problems _are…"

"Don't talk with food in your mouth, Mai." She leaned over and pushed a napkin towards her. "And child, are you so naïve so as not to understand what the _problems _are?"

In her depression and anger, she accidentally knocked a champagne flute off the table.

Crash.

_Whoops._

The Dowager closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, as if steadying herself.

"Go to bed, Mai – "She dismissed her with a wave of her hand. "We're both tired from the journey. It's three o'clock in the afternoon now, perfect for a siesta. I expect you to meet me at seven in the evening, we're going to work on your pronunciation."

"My pronunciation is fine." Mai was indignant – she already knew her imperfections but the Duchess seemed to have a knack for rubbing them in repeatedly.

"It is – did I contradict you? And breakfast is at eleven, you can ring for Amelia and she'll help you dress."

"Eleven o'clock?" Mai echoed; in the country they woke at seven and slept by nine. "Breakfast?"

"Hmm…" The Dowager stood up and pursed her lips, her blue eyes weary. "Acquaint yourself with the city hours. Breakfast at eleven, lunch at three, supper in the evening and to bed by eleven in the night. One by the most, if we're at a gathering."

The evening pronunciation lesson was, as you might have guessed, a perfect disaster.

"There's no need to open your mouth so wide to say 'toiled' and don't stutter – it's unnerving. Mai – you mispronounced that word again – go recite that again, no – not that –"

Mai wanted to punch the air triumphantly – she was doing this perfectly but something in the Duchess' expression restricted her own happiness.

After half an hour of making Mai recite the Bible, the Duchess almost snapped the book shut and ordered Mai to go to bed, closing her own eyes in exhaustion.

"Go to bed early today – tomorrow is a going to be a big day."

Mai smiled lopsidedly.

And as she went to her bed, throwing the white shift over her head, without sleep and a with heavy heart, she knew that she could never betray the Dowager.

So she thought about home…

She thought about Belinda and Leanne and Janet…

She thought about meat-pies and she thought about the faces of the ladies when Na – Lord Davis had selected her.

She thought about the Duchess and how she was going to betray her, even humiliate her.

And then she thought about her parents. What they'd be thinking as they watched over her.

But she found no comforts.

Not even in the thousand pounds…

* * *

><p>What Oliver had really expected when he came back from White's was total darkness and utter silence with no one to make inquiries into his sudden liking for the gentleman's club or his unexpected penchant for nocturnal adventures.<p>

He was – to his utter disappointment – utterly wrong.

For Wendall had wrenched open the door even before Oliver could grasp the knob – and there stood the old butler, in all apparel, holding a cup of tea in one hand and a pocket watch in the other as if he had been counting the hours Oliver had spent out of house.

Oliver felt – for lack of better phrases – like an awry child about to be severely rebuked.

_Damn._

"My lord." The grey-haired man merely bowed, sarcasm dripping from each gesture. "Welcome _back. _I trust that your day went quite well…"

"Of course Wendall." Oliver had seldom stayed out of doors till one o'clock – he had always been efficient and responsible than other people. "I take it that nothing is amiss at the house."

The butler took his coat and handed him the tea-cup.

"Oh nothing at all, sir." Wendall was one of those very few people whom Martin had given full authority over him and Gene. "Except perhaps your prolonged absence. I take it that you mean to avoid your mother."

Leave it to Wendall to be forthright about such a matter while remaining within his limits.

"I don't mean to avoid mother." He shortly replied, resting the tea-cup on a table - he didn't want to undermine Wendall's culinary skills but the tea he made was abslutely horrible and Oliver was often forced to water the bushes outside his room window with the beverage. "I had some work –"

"Then you mean to avoid Mai?"

Oliver who had been in the process of loosening his cravat, swung his head around to look at the butler in scrutiny; since when had he and Mai been on first-name basis? Surely she hadn't –

"She is a gentle young lady with a disposition that the generation of today should have – cordiality and respect for all no matter what their status… she has given me the leave to address her by her first name."

Oliver disinterestedly raised an eyebrow at his butler, taking time to think over the virtues that the wise man had given to Mai.

Respect and Mai? The girl was all impertinence to him.

"Unfortunately Mai is not being nominated for sainthood."

"Most unfortunately, I agree sir. She would have been one fine candidate. Such manners – some people, young men especially, who think it wise to spend time at White's frivolously –" At Oliver's arched eye-brow, the butler tactfully veered the topic. "- no offense meant to you sir, since you rarely do this as routine – but the generation should learn from her."

"Yes." Oliver knew that Wendall had not only been charmed by Mai but the girl had somehow managed to turn _his _employee against _him. _"And no, I don't mean to avoid her."

She was a loud, noisy, much too cheerful for his tastes type of girl no matter what saintly virtues she'd exhibited before the household. She may be charming the men in the house but he knew her true nature – she was just doing this for money, she was no saint.

And he found evidence of the fact later that night.

He was going up to his chambers after listening to Wendall make a long speech upon the faults of the young people in this time – and to say that Oliver was annoyed would be a gross understatement.

Just as he was about to enter the hallway, he saw a light behind one of the walls of the far end and on further discovery, he found out that it was Mai.

Wearing a white coloured, almost translucent night-shift, with her hair unbound, holding a lantern and looking rather comical as she tried to tip-toe across the room – it was Mai, God knew up to what deed and so he decided to surprise her.

"You won't find pounds stashed away in any of the rooms." He crossed his arms and leaned outside the door of his bed-chamber, calling out, watching as she went completely still. "So I suggest you stop searching. Besides, you look like an idiot."

So she had been snooping around places where she was not wanted – maybe up to some thievery, or maybe…

He tried not to think of other things she might be up to in the dead of the night, dressed in a flimsy shift, bare-footed. If this went on… he'd have to evict all of the male servants in his house, did the girl have any idea of what she was doing?

And all that outside _his _bedchamber?

If somebody would have seen her here…

She spun her head around to face him, her eyes wide and her mouth open but instead of stiffening due to fear of being caught red-handed, Mai simply closed her eyes and let her shoulders sag as if overcome by relief.

"Oh my lord." She breathed, having slumped onto the floor, she covered her face. "You scared me! I thought it was a ghost. Oh God." She moaned helplessly, turning the same shade of red – before he could help her to stand, she looked up at him, eyes narrowed and fierce with all her previous relief forgotten. "You know, you shouldn't be sneaking around corridors trying to scare people! And anyways, what _are _you doing _here?!_"

It had taken mere seconds for her temper to be aflame.

"This was my estate, last time I checked."

"This is your _brother's_ estate." She enunciated, standing up and dusting her shift. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that you were simply enjoying the advantages of having a duke for a twin."

This time his eyes narrowed dangerously – he was not used to being spoken like this. "And if it isn't obvious, my brother is following his whims while _I _have been appointed to take care of the estate and his duties."

She harrumphed and took hold of the lantern as if thinking over his words. He watched the little changes in her face – how her mouth tugged down in a scowl and how, seconds after, the scowl vanished to give way to happiness, how the anger disappeared, leaving behind a look of anticipation on her face.

"Will you please show me to the library?"

He raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "And what will you do in the library at this hour. Surely, you don't want to steal trinkets because I warn you, the library has nothing which you might sell."

Her placidity gave way to indignation which then transformed into incredulity.

"Why would I steal something? You're going to pay me well enough, my lord." She simply turned away from him. "Men… I don't know what goes on in the heads of those –"

He tuned her out and considered his options; he could command her to go back to her bed-chamber, not that she would listen – the girl would surely be back to her snooping… or he could show her the way to the library and be over with this hell.

Judging by the attire in which she was roaming around the house, he took the latter, he couldn't risk if she went about the house in _that. _Maybe then Wendall would see that she was not _so _saintly as he beheld her.

So he gave up and led her to the library, taking in her happiness as she almost skipped the entire way, humming to some ridiculous tune.

"I think you'll be happy if I tell you that the Bible recitation the Duchess made me do was nothing short of disaster." She laughed self-deprecatingly, imitating his mother's tone. "'It's all about the lumbering of the tongue.'"

Oliver was amused- his mother often said that.

"And oh - you missed lunch!" She beamed up at him and smiled cheekily. "I broke a flute and talked with my mouth open. The Duchess was horrified! Ahaha!"

He almost smiled to himself, turning around another corridor.

"Why were you at White's anyway?" She asked as she swung the lantern and skipped a step - it seemed that seh wouldn't stop talking. "The Dowager was angry."

"That's hardly your business."

She muttered 'arrogant stick-in-the-mud' under her breath and he was sure that she was making faces at his back.

The truth was that he didn't need another person to scold him for going to White's – Gene had almost never come home from that stupid place and all mother did was adore him and pet him while Wendall would never deliver a sermon. It seemed as if that was expected of Gene and everybody had adapted to his behaviour.

Then why the bloody hell was nobody adapting to _his_ behaviour?

"There you go." He opened the door and waited, holding it like a footman until she _graced _the library with her steps. "The library."

He looked, with perverse amusement, as she almost hopped around, laughing quietly, running her fingers through the titles and making noises of awe and astonishment.

"Oh my God!" She breathed. "God! How do you manage to stay alive in all this finery?! I'm going to expire!"

"Go ahead…" He mumbled under his breath, watching as her gaze wandered, doe-like eyes widening in wonder as she searched each corner, as if looking for hidden secrets. "Be my guest."

"Oooh!" She fingered a lock on one of the cabinets and turned to him, a mischievous look in her eyes. "So this is where Lord Davis keeps all the scandalous, risqué books for his study! Oooh!"

Her whistling and pixie-like manner made him roll his eyes. That was Gene's drawer and only God and Wendall knew what he kept over there but he would have agreed with Mai's theory that the drawer was full of risqué books.

"That isn't mine – it's Gene's."

She didn't even hide her disappointment at having lost a golden opportunity to tease him and instead skipped over, pulling open other cabinets until she reached his.

"Don't open that –" But it was too late for she was staring inside the drawer with an astonished look.

"This is _beautiful_." She held a kaleidoscopic glass orb that Gene had gifted him on one of his birthday. "Oh my." She breathed in delight, rummaging through the other items with interest – not knowing that it was his. "This is such lovely poetry!" She held up another paper which was a collection of poetry that had intrigued him. "And a travelogue!" Mai was going through the items in sheer joy and he did nothing but close the library door to keep the cold out. "And are these love-letters!?" He sighed, fearing a head-ache at her ebullient inquiries as he took a seat at his desk.

"They are news-cuttings." He replied and poured himself some water. "Mai, find the book you need and go to bed."

She looked up at him, her smile never dimming. "But whose drawer is this?"

"Mine." He said shortly, swiping all the contents back into the drawer and shutting it firmly. "Now find the book and leave."

He could swear she actually pouted like a two year old instead of a grown up girl as she unrolled a rope ladder and began her trek on the high shelf.

"Hmm…"

"Usually I would have been rapt with fascination if you fell from that ladder and broke your neck but I can't afford that." He said sardonically. "So I'll let you know that you're climbing up to the wrong shelves. Novels are in the other direction."

Mai paid him no mind at first…

"I know." She enigmatically retorted and ignored him as she fingered the titles off the books in the Business section. "I just wanted a book on accounting."

"Accounting?"

What did she want to do with an accounting book?

She looked down at him from her vantage point and blushed a bit – he could see it in the lamplight; the grace with which she ascended the ladder, her hair falling to the waist in waves burnished by the light, the lithe sensuality with which she was clinging…

And that was when his eyes widened and something dawned upon him.

Hell – she was not a girl; for all her innocence about such things, she was _not _a girl.

She was a woman.

Mai Taniyama was actually – climbing up a ladder, dressed in that flimsy, almost translucent thing that his mother had lent her, in front of him.

And he had watched?

He _definitely _needed to sleep – there was no denying that now.

Oliver could hear those sirens again; harsh, persistent, chanting 'run-while-you-can'.

He paid her – he reminded himself, as he snatched a book from a shelf and pretended to read it – he paid her and she was an imperfect woman, and a lowly servant and – and…

"Do you know what I dream of?"

He looked up at her to ascertain whether she had spoken to him and saw that she had, clinging to the ladder while she assessed the books, a glazed look in her eyes.

He didn't speak – it was as if he'd break something if he did, like moments when you knew that saying something would be futile. So he waited for her to speak.

And speak she did.

"I dream of grass…" She turned back to the shelf, taking out a book. "The springy kind, grazing my feet."

"Hmm…" He acknowledged, trying to be engrossed in his book.

"I dream of so many things – glory, love, contentment. I'm rather hopeless." Her muse was expressed in a low voice, just audible enough for him to hear.

"Your dreams _are_ rather stupid." He commented, just to make sure she had a rather snarky image of his in her mind when she left him alone tonight. "They're not going to come true."

Her laugh was tinkling. "Of course – that's why they are called dreams, silly."

A silence took over but she broke it again, her voice stronger now.

"And I dream of ambitions and of doing well –" Here she paused. "Can I tell you something? Promise not to laugh."

He 'hmmed' again though he was listening.

"I dream of my own business." She flushed and looked away. "I can do that with the money you'll give me but I couldn't decide what to trade in, though I'll think up of something soon."

He didn't laugh – honestly, why would he laugh but then again maybe somebody in the past had made mockery of her thoughts and she'd become that conscious…

He watched silently as she threw the book on the desk left to the shelf and –

"Mai?" He asked, raising in eyebrow, as she clung to the ladder with one hand and spread her other arm. "What are you doing?"

She didn't hear but just smiled – her eyes closing…

And jumped from a suicidal distance…

It all happened very slowly – she was falling at first, then she did a simple pirouette in the air and he stood up so suddenly from that it upset the chair, his brain processed the distance between her falling form and his desk but before he could take a step towards her, she landed with her arms spread, the smile widened.

_What the..._

In his mind, he was yelling something along the lines of 'Hell! What do you think you are doing, woman?!' but in reality, he was standing there, ashen faced as she sauntered towards him, the book tucked under her arm; unconscious of her stunt.

"Hey Naru!" She waved a hand in front of his face. "Are you alright? I just asked you if I could borrow this book but you seemed kind of… lost in your own world…"

_What had she just called him?_

He blinked rapidly – trying to understand the situation, trying to focus on the book she was waving in front of his face.

'Accounting With Acumen' – it was one of his regular reads and was often in his coat's pocket, maybe some maid had taken it and shelved it in the library.

He'd almost been about to say no but he'd said the opposite instead.

"Yes."

She smiled up at him as if he was the hero of her existence and he blinked again, testing whether he still had his sight or whether he had been blinded.

"Thank you!" She beamed and then hugged the book. "Don't you think it's strange; this book smells nice – like clean soap and ink and –" She sniffed. "cologne? Well maybe they perfume the books here. Anyways, I love it already!"

She thought the _book _smelled _nice?_

"Strange." He nodded mutely. "Very strange."

She couldn't have hit it more directly if she'd said that she loved him or maybe his rationality had lapsed but he found himself nodding and muttering 'strange' under his breath in a quiet manner.

Mai brushed right past him, humming to herself – clutching the book quite contentedly, before she turned to him, standing in the doorway, smiling.

"See…" She was almost smug but her smile was warm. "Aren't you kind, Naru?"

And then she went out of the room, leaving him all alone in the library.

"Strange." He muttered agitatedly, after her retreating form. "Very strange."

Then God knew why it felt like a lie in his mind.

Why it didn't feel strange…

"Get ready to hand over my thousand pounds Naru…" He could hear her trailing voice in the corridor but he was staring so hard at the glass orb that he could almost pretend that he hadn't heard what she had said.

This time the bells tolled and the sirens screamed shrewdly but all he could do was look up and glare at the empty doorway where she'd just been standing, beaming at him.

And then he cleared his head by a solemn shake.

It would do him well to stay away and follow the sirens.

* * *

><p><strong>*Old hounds: <strong>A new term coined by a guest reviewer 'Elm' for old, gossiping ladies of the town.

**A/N: **_And here I am to ramble and munch on your brain – since I have got nothing better to do. This chapter was unusually long but I just couldn't mince it – so sorry if it hurt your eyes! The chapters from now on will be shorter since I'm done with all the details and the formalities._

**Review - for the sake of virtual cookies!**

_Also check out the adorably beautiful sketch that Ferb O. Oche drew for this story – I've reblogged it on my tumblr and you'll find the link of the image on my profile! Thank you Ferb O. Oche, it really made my day!_

**-borntoflyhigh-**


	5. The Truths That Deceive Us

**'And Then Came A Duke'**

_**In Which She Is Altered, He Is Taken Aback and They Establish A Routine**_

**Disclaimer: **_I do NOT own GH… because yeah, that would be drastic…_

**A/N: **_Hey everyone! I'm back :) and I present to you the next chapter in this series - hopefully it will suit to your tastes. Thanks to everyone wh reviewed ~ I'm so glad you did! I had been having a major writer's block but thanks to a few songs of Adam Lambert, I was prompted to write. Have a cookie..._

**Mary: **_Thank you sooo much! I'm really happy you love it and I hope that you like this chappie too. Cookie!_

**Elm:** _:D Well, I loved the 'old hound' thing - it just fitted so perfectly! And yeah, one day when I publish something that's worth reading, maybe I'll realize that I'm a good writer. Oh well, I have an extremely amusing scene for the scoundrel that is Lord Davis in the wild card - well you see - I won't write a full-blown 'scene' but yeah it refers to just what isn't for the kiddies ;) That will be the good part I assure you demoiselle...thanks for your review, really made me smile! *Hands over cookie jar* Cheers!_

* * *

><p>'<em>I saw a picture of you<em>

_Hanging in an empty hallway_

_I heard a voice that I knew_

_And I couldn't walk away_

_It took me back to the end_

_Of everything_

_I taste it all I taste it all_

_The tears again' _

– **Sleepwalker/ Adam Lambert**

* * *

><p><em>'It is being whispered among the ton that Lady Mortram has extended the invitation of the Yule Crush to the mysterious Miss Taniyama.<em>

_It is also rumoured among the hallways of our talented modiste - Madame Reveilles - that the Duchess has already ordered the gown to be made for the occasion; studded with jewels at the hem and neckline. __The colour is to be a tempting shade of ivory._

_All that is left be seen is whether the young lady is up to the mark at the Crush - or will she be gobbled up by the ton like the scrumptious eclair pudding at Lady Mortram's 18th Yule Crush.' - _The Snitch, April 1816.

* * *

><p>And when he stared at the mirror, watching in mute shock as the frown on his face dissolved into a smile; <em>that <em>smile – he knew that there was no escape from this, no escape from looking at his twin smiling at him.

_That _smile – ironic, mocking.

"It's all your fault, Noll."

He wanted to explain himself, defend, yell but even as his lips moved framing the empty words, no sound left his mouth. It was as if something was stuck in his throat. It was like running into walls that he could never break, high, unreachable.

"_You_ deserved to die."

_No._

It wasn't his fault – it couldn't be his fault. He wouldn't kill his twin, no matter what happened; he couldn't kill Gene, he wasn't a _murderer_. Never could be. Then why couldn't Gene see the protest in his eyes, why was he so intent on skewering him with that smile?

"It's _all _your fault. Everything."

_Get out of my head! _

But the sounds wouldn't stop, not even when he stood up and flung the mirror to the floor, eyes wild and savage, voice hoarse, watching as the shards made a sickening sounds, scattering to the floor in a flash of sparkling glass.

"_It's all your fault._"

Even then his words rebounded, making his head spin, making his blood pound restlessly in his ears; even over the din of his throbbing head and uneven breathing, the voice wouldn't stop. It wouldn't stop echoing around him, not until he could only stare at the broken mirror, fists clenched, knuckles white; when it finally struck him, the chasing guilt.

Like a taunting, never-ending shadow.

It wasn't his fault…

Or… was it –?

* * *

><p>When Mai woke the next morning, her first thought was the fact that her mattress was entirely too comfortable…<p>

Which surprised her since that was hardly ever her first thought when she woke up at home.

She turned on her back and was surprised at the gentle scrap of fabric against her ankles – the blanket at home was a coarse thing that Aunt Beatrice had knitted herself and never reached till her ankles unless she twisted herself into a ball.

_Maybe I've finally died and I'm in some kind of heavenly bliss…_

But as she groggily gazed up at the intricately designed ceiling with the scent of tea, paper and cologne enticingly in reach, she realized with a jolt that this was not her home, not her bed and nor was this Spindle Cove. She was not even in the same district and certainly not in Paradise.

_Oh my God…_

She was in London! Of all places she'd imagined for herself! This was the Eleventh Duke of Shibuya's estate and she was in bed, with a quilt draped all over her, the book she'd borrowed from the library firmly tucked in her arms, giving off that previous scent, situated in the lovely amber room in the North wing.

The lovely, lovely room with a lovely, lovely bed and the loveliest bed-spreads that she'd ever slept on, which of course made her sleep longer than usual –

And her next thought made her sit up, eyes darting towards the clock on the mantelpiece.

_Am I late - ?!_

The stupid clock chimed disapprovingly, every ticking sound it was making seemed like a whip to Mai's mind, forcing it into immediate thinking.

_I'm late! I can't believe this! Whaaa- I can't be late, this is impossible, I don't sleep this much -!_

Forcing her wild thoughts to remain calm, Mai disentangled herself from the sheets, but lo and behold, in her hurry to get off the bed and dress she forgot that her right foot while free had no connection with her left foot, which was still entangled in the quilt that was draped all over her left leg.

_**Thud!**_

_Ow._

She fell face first, her right leg twisted at an odd angle while her left leg clung to the bed-spreads and that was how the Tenth Dowager Duchess of Shibuya found her, sprawled on the floor, arms flailing as she tried to yell for help.

"Miss Taniyama?" In came the flurry of silk and flounce and she found herself face-to-face with the Dowager's skirt hem. "Don't tell me that you slept the night in that posture. Such acrobatics in bed aren't suited to a Duchess."

Mai groaned, mentally face-palming herself.

"Does it look...like," She tried to lift herself off the floor, every joint in her body protesting. "- does it look like I'm sleeping, Your Grace?"

The Duchess nodded blankly, blue eyes wide.

"Oh God." Mai moaned, heaving herself off the floor and sat on the bed rubbing her throbbing temple. "Oh God."

"Don't utter blasphemies so casually." The Duchess took off her cream coloured gloves and placed them on the vanity table, making a bee-line for the dressing room, completely ignoring the fact that she was howling in pain as her leg throbbed. "Get dressed quickly, Miss Taniyama. Breakfast is in ten minutes."

Mai sighed – so much for thinking that she actually had to work to cause disaster when it came to her so naturally.

Walking towards the large closet, Mai thought her situation over; in the past day she had not only been selected to be the Eleventh Duchess of Shibuya but had been almost sold by her uncle, told of her various imperfections by the tenth Duchess and not only this but she'd formed a kind of silent contract with the extremely handsome and narcissistic Lord Davis who seemed to think of himself as an example of masculine perfection.

_Not _that he was wrong about that last part.

_Bad Mai!_

"Wait a minute…"She stared at the empty closet in shock. "Where are the dresses I bought from home? I swear I placed them in the closet yesterday."

"Oh _those._" The Duchess turned to her, a peach coloured silk dress in her hand and waved airily. "I burned them."

"What?!"

Maybe the Duchess hadn't heard her the first time around.

"WHAT?!"

Now what was she going to wear for the remainder of her stay?!

"There is absolutely no need to yell, Miss Taniyama." The Duchess smoothed the peach dress and laid it on her bed, before straightening to look at Mai as if appalled. "You did not think that grey was appealing in any fashion, did you?"

Item one on her 'Scare-The-Duchess-Away' list would be displaying a total lack of fashion sense, seeing how mortified she was at the fact that Mai had thought that her simple grey gowns would be any help this month.

"I thought –" Mai fidgeted a bit; oh she was being paid for this, but Naru didn't know how bad she was at lying. "- I thought grey would be simple. After all – " She decided to quote Lady Draconia's etiquette book, in a stroke of genius, smirking slightly. "'- simplicity is what wins a man. The true lady –'"

The Duchess was quick to interrupt her. "That is nonsense. I haven't heard tripe bigger than that." And fingering the lace on her dress, she spoke again. "Can you see this lace, Miss Taniyama? This was the lace on one of the dresses I wore right after my marriage and I have my suspicions that my husband loved this piece of net more than me."

_Oh…_

Mai bit her lip, it seemed as if the tenth duke had really loved his wife; if the dreamy look in the Dowager's eyes was any indication.

"Yes." A mischievous smile lined the woman's face. "And he even ventured to send a bonus to the modiste so she could sew it on _every _one of my dresses."

Mai coloured – that was supposed to be a private piece of the Duke's life but the Duchess was laying all her secrets to her regardless of the fact that the she was a maid.

Regardless of the fact that she was low beneath the rungs of society's ladder that the Duchess was on.

And it touched her heart.

"Please call me Mai." She leaned towards the Duchess, a hopeful look in her eyes. "I would be… honoured if you would."

The Dowager who'd been examining the peach dress looked up at her in astonishment but it soon melted into a dazzling smile.

"Of course Mai." Testing her name, she smiled again. "Somehow it fits it you child, short, abrupt, meaningful."

"I don't think I'm short." Mai laughed. "I'm twenty-three, your grace."

The Dowager shook her head fondly, lips upturned. " – Untrue. You're younger than Noll by a year and I still think he is barely out of leading strings."

She truly laughed at the image forming in her mind; of Lord Davis as a child, sullen, refusing to cooperate.

"So-back to our business." The Duchess straightened, her mouth in that straight line which meant she was planning, _hard. _"I will see you at breakfast and we'll be discussing the schedule for this month. With any luck, Noll will be absent from the table."

Mai suspected that too – now that she thought about it, she had been rather fast with him yesterday, she'd almost ordered him to take her to the library and had even opened his private drawer, teasing him. It was no wonder if he stayed away from her for the rest of her stay.

She was slightly disappointed with the thought but could only nod at the Duchess' retreating form, feeling the same pang she had felt yesterday. Apparently she was not built for betrayal or lies – that would teach her to never, ever accept an aristocrat's scheme in the future.

_As if there was any aristocrat more cunning than Naru._

Mai felt her cheeks heat up and ignored Fleur's raised eyebrows as the maid buttoned the dress. It clung to her naturally and Mai saw herself in the mirror, the worry in her eyes barely hidden by the beautiful dress, the anxious thoughts barely being concealed under the elegant braid.

She wasn't beautiful – she could never be.

But she would be contented with imperfection; if they led to the thousand pounds.

* * *

><p>Breakfast was laid out in all its finery, toast, kipper, scones, muffin, tarts and tea and Mai longed to reach out to the finery and let it melt in her mouth but when she extended her hand towards a delicious muffin, the Duchess batted it away, looking reproachful.<p>

"Now, Mai." She said, leaning back to sit in her chair at the head of the table. "Before you gobble this up – " Ignoring Mai's look of indignation, she continued. " – let us discuss the schedule. Today we shall first go up to the modiste to have a handful of gowns made for you. Then to the milliner and the jeweller – "

"But the whole dressing room is filled with dresses and gloves and jewellery." Mai interrupted. "I don't think I need more gowns to- "

"Nonsense." The Duchess reached towards a filled tea-cup but shot Mai a look which meant that she couldn't start her breakfast yet. "They are out of vogue. A Duchess is the model of fashion, an exemplar for the _ton _to follow –"

Mai stifled a yawn which she pointedly ignored.

" – So we need more gowns and gloves and bonnets."

"But we have a month." Mai reminded the Duchess, finally allowed to eat, as she hurriedly buttered a toast. "You can't possibly do anything to me in such short time."

"Of course I can!" The Duchess looked indignant.

"But you don't understand," Mai countered, head bowed down as she concentrated on buttering her toast. "I'll still be the same ugly girl, with the ugly manners and I'll say wrong things at the wrong times, or worse I'll – "

"She'll be a disaster." A decided voice interrupted her self-deprecation and she heard the gentle scraping of a chair against the floor as the person seated themselves facing her. "She's right, even if on a rare occasion."

And when Mai looked up, it was Lord Davis, his eyes visible as the rest of his face was hidden behind the sheet of newspaper he was reading.

She felt something drop in her stomach.

"Noll!" The Dowager looked torn between reproach and the astonishment of seeing her reclusive son at the breakfast table. "You should hold your tongue – but why are you at breakfast, I thought you had to see how the tenants were doing today?"

He didn't answer at first and when he did, it was a brief, laconic one.

"I was going to."

"Then go." Mai mumbled under her breath, choosing to stab at her toast instead of the person before her.

"I heard that." He retorted flatly from behind the newspaper.

"You two-" The Duchess waved a knife to make her point, sighing with much flair. "Are like a pair of squabbling children."

"I agree." He agreed, loftily. "She is a child."

"Hullo!" Mai put a hand on her waist, ignorant of the buttered toast she'd been eating, glaring up at his high-and-mighty manner. "You have no room to talk, Lord of the Sullen and Grumbling. You're just as childish as I am…" And she was about to complete the speech with a huffing pout when she found a deathly silence over the table, the Dowager staring at her in complete shock.

That was when she noticed that Naru had finally lowered his newspaper and was looking at her in complete disinterest, with a raised eyebrow. And that was when she finally saw him, looking as if he'd barely slept the last night, staring at her with a strange, furious type of look.

Truth to be told – he looked angry, and restless and definitely in the mood to fight but it was all hidden under the nonchalant façade that barely cracked.

How Mai wanted to see him laugh.

And it hit her, the intensity of what she'd done.

Oh God! She'd actually talked back to a Lord! When she was nobody –

"I –"

"Children are allowed tantrums." His mouth was flattened in a frown but she could see the smug look in his eyes. "Not twenty-four year old _spinsters_."

"_Twenty-three_." She seethed, ignoring the Duchess' discreet cough.

"A slight mistake." He feigned ignorance at his intentional jab.

"I thought that a gentleman didn't refer to a lady's age?"

The look he gave her was one of complete insolence.

"I never said I was one." Standing up rather abruptly, he shrugged into a black coat. "And you never said you were a lady."

Mai felt her appetite go down the drain.

"But Noll – you – breakfast -?"

"I suggest Mother that you save your time and energy by not working on her." He ignored his mother's remarks and turned towards the door, striding out of the room as briskly as he'd come in, his monotonous voice trailing behind. "It's not as if she would actually improve."

_But he'd been so nice last night!_

The Duchess covered her gasp of shock and turned to Mai who was sitting rigidly in her chair, face blank, staring at his now empty chair as half-finished thoughts rang through her brain.

"Noll didn't mean it, Mai." The Duchess' voice was cool and calm; placating even. "He truly did not."

And one of them was actually ignoring the thousand pounds and proving to him that she could be a Duchess, she could be well-mannered and flirtatious and fashionable and smart and everything that he thought she wasn't.

She wanted to show him that she could be everything that screamed perfection, and she wanted to lie about herself, even if for this one day. Tomorrow she would worry about the thousand pounds, tomorrow she could make a list of all the things that would scare the Duchess away from her, tomorrow she could worry about all those she'd left at home.

Today she would be Mai Taniyama, the soon-to-be, Eleventh Duchess of Shibuya; just to spite him, just to show him that she was resilient to his remarks, she didn't care.

She _shouldn't_ care.

But living in a lie was tempting and so she turned to the Duchess, the determined look in her eyes.

She was not who she was at sixteen; self-effacing, naïve – she could be cool and proud, she would be, she was twenty-three, life had taught her so much, she was impervious to his set-downs … she was a lie.

"What did you say was on schedule for today?"

And the Dowager smiled wickedly, leaning forward to impart her genius plan.

In a matter of minutes, Mai was smiling too.

* * *

><p><em>'The inner potential of a lady is exposed when she sees another person in a predicament. All such sacrifices are notable, of course - but a word of advice, do so to a person a bit nearer to your status (pray, do not prowl in alleyways) and do so at a place where you're bound to have an audience. The true lady shines in the praise bestowed on her.' - <em>A Lady's Guide To Deportment by Lady Draconia Embers

* * *

><p>"Noll." Takigawa gritted his teeth, shooting yet another bullet that strayed from the target. "Go easy on me, will you?"<p>

_No chance._

A sheen of sweat covered his forehead but he shot another perfect shot, dead centre and could feel Takigawa gaze at him as if he was a demigod. Takigawa, no matter how strong he was, had always been a terrible shot with rifles or guns or arrows. As he clenched his jaw again, letting his brain assess the distance between the target and his pistol, his opponent looked almost regretful that he had found him in such a state of restlessness, when he wanted to lop someone's head off.

But as long as he was tired beyond thinking of inappropriate things when in dangerous territory - Oliver thought grimly as his hawk like gaze riveted upon the next target, an innocent apple that hung from one of the branches – as long as she didn't catch him unawares with what she said, all this exercise was good, it kept his mind off unnecessary things at least.

"Noll – man, I think you really shouldn't be wielding a weapon when you're in such a –" Takigawa cringed when he loaded the gun again, hands fisted, viciously.

Oliver ignored Monk's fear and stared at the target for a moment, gun positioned perfectly.

Nobody had _ever _called him childish. She had no right to call him childish.

" – mood. Oh damn it Noll!"

And the bullet hit the apple. Dead centre; going right through the middle of the fruit as it fell to the ground.

"Shut up Takigawa." He murmured absently, looking for something else to shoot and his gaze lingered on Takigawa's arm. A desirable target. "You're giving me free leave to run a bullet straight through your arm."

His opponent raised both of his palms in surrender. "Let's talk Davis – you're in this absolutely horrible mood. And you thought it would be good to single me out for a shooting practice. Really? Have your senses taken leave?"

Oliver frowned, lowering his gun but did not say anything- and what would he say? Truth to be told, he was always angry, but on some days - such as this one – he was in a frame of mind where he did little to conceal it. Today he was in a vicious mood, prepared to snap at anything that stepped in his path.

Much like an Earl who was determined to pester him to death.

"Not to interrupt your brooding," Takigawa carried on conversationally, his gun long forgotten. " – but what was the girl's name again?"

_**Not **_another half-witted creature.

"Look, Davis – " Takigawa winced as he fired, dismayed that it had missed he target again. "You're not answering which makes me even more suspicious. If you're not telling me I'll ask Yasu."

"Yasu– " Oliver said almost coolly, if one could ignore the throbbing headache he was facing. "– will keep his mouth firmly shut if he does not want it dislodged. Permanently."

"But it's a girl, isn't it?"

"I'm going to amputate you with a pistol… if you don't keep quiet."

Takigawa dared snicker at his temperament. "You're not going to." He turned to face him. "So – allow me to guess this one, it's a pretty, stinging, loud-mouthed, yet oh-so-virtuous girl that you have no right to interfere with?"

"She's going to marry my brother." He interjected. "At least that is what Mother thinks."

"No matter how hermetic a man is," Takigawa winked, smiling. " – he imagines his best friend's betrothed at least once as his own wife."

Oliver raised an eyebrow at the Earl; clearly disagreeing with the assessment.

"She's going to be the wife of my _brother._"

"Aye." He misfired again, clearly distracted with the _oh-so-interesting _conversation. "But that doesn't mean anything at all, at least not until Gene approves of her."

That was the problem – he wanted to retort – Gene would never approve of her because Gene would never…

"This." Oliver revelled in the sharp sound the pistol made, with every bullet it seemed as if his temper was returning to normal. "Is an inane conversation."

"Well you're not telling me who this _woman _is." Takigawa flopped down in a chair set in the garden, running a hand through his long hair. "If you did, I'll probably leave you to brood upon the various follies of –"

_Enough._

"_She _called me childish." Oliver gritted his teeth and fired again, agitated. "_Me. _Childish."

Takigawa leaned forward, suddenly interested, pouring himself a glass of brandy.

"Oho!" At his glare, the man immediately sobered but the amusement lingered in his brown eyes. "Well, yes, that's hard to imagine but it _is _interesting."

"It isn't." He said harshly. "She's wreaking havoc, she's destroying my plans, she's – "

" – She's making you feel as if you're the villain in some badly written romance novel?" Takigawa completed his sentence, swirling the brandy, thoughtfully. "- she's turning your life upside down and is so wretchedly reasonable that you realize that you _are _the villain and she's the figure of saintly virtues?"

Oliver's internal shock was immeasurable, probably at how accurately Takigawa had summed up his predicament but he carefully controlled his facial expression, maintaining that look of bored viciousness, particularly because of how Takigawa was smiling mysteriously at him. Unlike Lin, Takigawa had a carefree approach to baffling problems (Oliver's method was the best, of course given his commendable rationality) and made the problems look lame and weak, as if he'd made it a problem when it was a blessing in disguise in all actuality.

Lin had one way of thinking. If it disturbs you, then get rid of it…

Disrupt. Distract. Destroy.

"How did you know all that?"

"Well," The newly titled Earl smiled and stretched his legs on the table set before him. "I've been there, felt that."

"When has a woman destroyed your plans?" He asked sceptically; Takigawa had always been exceptionally flirtatious and well-placed when it came to securing women; despite the fact that he had once been the musician at the tavern in Spindle Cove.

"I am married." Takigawa shrugged, trying to smother his laugh at Oliver's predicament. "That was the destruction of my plans, Noll."

He was not glad that Takigawa found the whole ordeal _amusing. _

"Tell me Davis." He guffawed uncontrollably, shaking a few tears of merriment from his eyes. "Why I haven't met this priceless chit yet?"

"Because it's unnecessary." Oliver said decidedly. "She'll be packing her bags in a week and will be off to Spindle Cove."

"I doubt that, Noll." Takigawa's expression hovered on indecision. "She won't be sent back – she'll probably live in the household as your mother's companion."

He hoped not.

It was one thing to tolerate Mai every day for one month but it was quite another thing to see her every day at the estate as his mother's companion.

"Apparently she has some insane idea that I might resemble Gene in character."

"Gene?" Takigawa's eyes widened. " Resembling _you?_"

Well, the look of incredulity hardly surprised him – hell, he wouldn't have been surprised if Takigawa didn't start laughing at the absurd idea.

"She's an idiot." It was as if he was telling himself that she was one, instead of Takigawa. "She wagered a thousand pounds that she could prove it to me."

"Well, I think first she has to prove that to the _ton." _Smiling secretively at him, Takigawa snickered again behind his hand. "My, my, aren't you in trouble Davis?"

"I'm hardly amused."

"But you should be." He stood up and walked towards him, his expression airy. "It's funny. She's a damsel who talks back at you, you hate her and she hates you and God knows maybe she'll be your sister-in-law by the next month."

_Sister-in-law?_

Mai?

Hell no.

"Look, Noll." Takigawa pushed a gun towards him and gestured to the targets on the tree. "You can fire away at that old thing just so you dispose of your anger. Or sit down and have a whiskey."

Oliver assessed his options and chose the gun, surprised when Takigawa abandoned his seat and took a place some distance behind him, holding a knife in his hands, spinning it expertly.

"Alright. Play time is over." Takigawa called from behind him. "On the count of three Davis."

Oliver held up the gun, eyes narrowed.

"One."

His ears perked up at the sound of footsteps on the gravel path and his mind wandered over to who was approaching the garden.

"Two."

And before Oliver had time to lower his gun, in came his mother, the mischievous smile on her face being wiped off at the unfolding scene as she halted, eyes widening for some reason.

And after her followed a woman.

"Three!"

Or was it Mai?

_Mai?_

Unconsciously he lowered the gun and swung his head around, his stare riveted on her.

What the - ?

"Look out Naru!"

That was before he felt a searing pain in his arm.

* * *

><p>"Whoops!" Lord Takigawa, Earl of Rycliff, grinned lopsidedly at her and the Dowager. "It seems I missed."<p>

Mai wasn't sure who screamed next…

But it couldn't be the Duchess since the old woman hardly looked perturbed and instead of being worried about her son, leaned towards Mai, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. "I call _that _a success."

But she was past hearing, her face was bleached off its colour, her mouth hung open, eyes widened in fear as she saw blood trickle down his arm, the knife of Lord Takigawa having narrowly missed Naru's shoulder, nicking him in the arm in the process. So Mai abandoned all thoughts of experimenting and training and hiked up her skirts, running almost unconsciously towards him, her hand over her mouth.

It didn't occur to her that they both had an audience, it didn't occur to her that Naru was staring at her as if she was an unusual creature who had dropped from the sky and it certainly didn't occur to her that she might be the reason that Naru had been converted into a statue, if only for a moment.

"What the hell were you thinking!?" She looked up hysterically at him, only to find his blue eyes fixated upon her. "Why didn't you react?!"

Swinging her head back furiously – Mai shot the Earl a dirty look, everyone at Spindle Cove knew that the former musician was a bad shot and yet the man had endangered the safety of Lord Davis and looked airy about it! How dare he?!

Ignoring the look on the Duchess' look of shock; she ushered the still dazed Lord Davis to a chair and tried to prise his fingers away from the wound.

_Stop staring at me._

The sight of the wound made her nauseous and she resisted the urge to do something drastic just to shake him out of the stupor he seemed to be in but instead, she tore off the white piece of skirt from the hem of her dress and picked up the glass of brandy from the table. Unbuttoning his cuff, she rolled the sleeve up to his arm and examined the wound, probing it to see for signs of being serious.

"Stupid, arrogant, narcissistic aristocrat." She murmured to nobody in particular as she dabbed the torn piece of skirt with the brandy in the glass. "You scared me!"

And that was the truth, he had scared her.

Footsteps grew louder behind her and Mai saw the Duchess and the Earl coming to stand beside her, all of them looking into Lord Davis' impassive face.

"This might hurt, Naru." If Mai was concentrating on anything other than bandaging his arm, she might have noticed the Duchess and Earl's astonishment at her created nickname. When she tentatively started to clean the wound, he winced and his hand came up to bat hers away but she was adamant.

So she glared at him and firmly pushed his hand away.

"Oh my but he's really hurt!" The Dowager clapped a hand to her mouth, whirling around to face Takigawa. "What were you thinking?!"

Though the wound wasn't very deep, what with the knife having almost missed him – for which Mai thanked God – the mere sight of crimson trickling down his arm and staining his sleeve made Mai queasy.

"My apologies, Your Grace." The man bowed repeatedly, still looking confused about the whole scene. "I just didn't notice that Noll was distracted."

Mai gave him a pointed look.

"Not," he said, smiling in an avuncular fashion at her. " – that I blame him. What with such a beautiful young lady – "

"Thank you for the compliment Takigawa." The Duchess said primly. "It is extremely nice to be called beautiful when one reaches my age."

The Earl pressed his lips together, to keep the laughter from betraying him.

And finally, when Mai had finished bandaging his arm, did the young aristocrat speak.

"What, are you wearing?" It was a rhetorical question made in a hoarse voice.

The Duchess gave a satisfied hum beside her.

"A dress…" Mai replied uncertainly, qualing under his stare as she realized the predicament. Her hands were on his arm and she was…

_Oh God!_

Her face burned to scarlet.

"I see that." He snapped and then turned to his mother, pointing accustorily at her. "What is she wearing?"

"Oho!" Earl Takigawa said in amusement.

"I believe he has a fever." The Duchess claimed, placing a hand on his forehead to check his temperature. "The shock seems to have made him delirious."

Mai wanted to die…the heat on her face was enough to fry eggs.

"I am perfectly capable of thinking." He stood up, back to his normal self, the nonchalance back on his face. "What are you wearing –" He looked almost calm. Deceptively calm. "The last time I checked, debutantes did not wear dresses like _that."_

"Like what?" Mai asked blankly. "And you… checked?"

The Duchess was quick to interfere in the conversation. "Well, I'm quite glad to see that you're in perfect health but like Mai, I am intrigued. Did you actually check or was it just a figure of speech."

Mai could almost swear that she saw him give off an ominous aura – if the way he was pinching his nose-bridge was any indication.

"God help you, Davis." Takigawa chuckled.

"Enough." Naru glared at the three of them. "If you wear such gowns to functions – as mother must have told you – I will not be held responsible for what happens to you."

"Yes, yes." Lord Takigawa nodded, affectedly. "Do stay away from Davis at all such functions, you might not know but he would definitely ra-"

"Takigawa."

"What Noll?" The Earl asked innocently. " – I was about to tell her that you may rage at her, since that is what a man does my dear girl, if he is deeply in– "

"Takigawa."

Mai just stared blankly at the two (friends…?) as Lord Davis promptly interrupted the Earl whenever the man started to complete his sentence

"If you had not interrupted, you would have heard that I meant deeply interested in work and does not like frivolous parties – " Takigawa sighed, rolling his eyes heavenward. " – oh Noll, really your thoughts always lurk in the gutter. And your mind – is positively diseased."

"Takigawa." Naru enunciated each syllable with a stabbing glare.

"I do not understand what you gentlemen go on about." The Duchess waved her fan and Mai looked down at her gown. It wasn't indecent at all just a bit diaphanous around the sleeves, a bit tightly laced but surely Naru was overreacting.

He _had _to be.

"Anyways," The Duchess looked at the Earl. "We came to consult Ayako on the gown that Mai should wear to Lady Mortram's Yule Crush."

The truth was that they had come over here because on reaching home after a visit to the modiste, Wendall had informed them that Lord Davis was over to the Earl's estate.

The Duchess, being as conniving as she was, whisked Mai off to the estate on the pretext of meeting the Countess of Wycliff, Ayako Matsuzaki."

"Ah well – this miss over here got an invitation by that biddy." Lord Takigawa smiled. "I'm sorry but Ayako isn't at home, she's gone back to Spindle Cove for a day or two."

Mai started at Spindle Cove's name – didn't Lord Takigawa recognize her from his days at the tavern – but the way he was treating her didn't seem that he recognized her. So she let out a sigh of relief.

"We would be going home now." The Duchess said firmly, tipping her head at the Earl as she grabbed Mai's elbow and beckoned to her son whom everybody seemed to be ignoring. "Come on Noll, Mai."

They both followed the Duchess to the carriage, after Mai waved enthusiatically at the Earl who waved back just as energetically.

As soon as the carriage started rolling towars Thrushcross Grange, Mai relaxed in her seat, her mind a whirlwind as the events of today came into her mind.

They had visited the modiste, Madame Reveilles, who had claimed that her dresses had exclusively been responsible for dressing women in gowns that seemed to beckon to men of eligible statuses. She boasted the truth herself, how she had made a governess blue gown for the odd Miss Masako Hara, which was so becoming on her that it is reputed that Lord Yasu fell in love with her when he saw her in the flattering dress, on the spot. Or take Lady Jane, who was so nondescript that she had been nicknamed 'Miss Plain' but one gown from Madame had her married off to the Earl of Dettingham or the bookish Miss Heather, the painfully shy Miss Clara (who got married two days after wearing the gown) or many other girls whose life had been changed by this modiste.

"…But despite the fact that I work miracles." The modiste had clucked her tongue as she assessed Mai who was standing on the platform, arms outstretched, entangled in measuring tapes. "Look at her, Your Grace; she does not have the body that is in fashion. What you've asked of me is… impossible."

Mai was sure she'd never been more depressed in her life, it was so unfair of the plump modiste to make fun of her. She may be a maid, sure she did not have the face or body that was in the vogue but nobody had the right to call her plain. Nobody.

But then – Mai thought, her thoughts lightening – all that mattered was showing Naru that she _could _be a lady.

The Dowager who had been sitting on a chair, was less genial towards the famous modiste, her expression cold and domineering, her spine ramrod, she had turned to madame with an icy look, cutting Mai through her statement.

"I don't recall _asking_." The Duchess had intertwined her pale, thin fingers in her lap. "I do recall, however_, commanding_ you to dress this girl in the most ravishing dresses of the year."

Silence.

The quiet hush that had been caused by the Duchess' acidic remark was broken when Madame Reveilles had blanched at the thought of losing a customer and hurriedly beckoned to the working girls to bring the sample book.

Which was how Mai had found herself being draped in silk and velvet and satin, in different colours as the Duchess delivered a lecture.

"A Duchess, Mai." She had said. "Never demeans herself, a Duchess does not talk about herself as if she does not matter, she _never _loses her temper – and most importantly she doesn't buckle in _any _sense of the word."

She had nodded – this was what it felt like, being trained to be somebody who you were not and that was when she had remembered Naru's comment earlier that day:

"_She'll be a disaster."_

And she'd taken the sentence as a prayer to remember whenever she had been in the mood to abandon this plan and be back to the disaster causing maid she was.

Her train of thought led her to glance secretively at Naru; his arms were crossed as he looked out of the window, looking solemn and brooding, deep in some muse.

Thankfully that was better than the waspish mood he'd been in the morning… but why was he behaving like this with her; didn't they have a contract between them – he had to know that she would uphold her side of it tomorrow, if that was what troubled him.

She wanted to tell him that she wasn't trying to be a fresh village lass, toppling his life over, not some stainless angel who'd been bestowed to him to get rid of his demons – that would be crack – Mai had her secrets, she had her share of sins, lying and everything and she had no wish to interfere in his life. There were things he was hiding, things she didn't want to know about unless he told her himself (which would be… never), she couldn't understand why the Duchess couldn't understand that about her son, how she could not look at him and see his dilemma there in his tired eyes.

She just wanted him to…

Look up and stop trying to sulk in the shadows he'd created for himself.

* * *

><p>In the end; he was back in the library...<p>

Deliberately counting the minutes up to midnight, he stared at the doorway– because somehow he knew she would come, her face when he'd shown her the place yesterday screamed the fact that she would be here back again, at the same time.

And he wanted to be there when she looked up at the expansive luxury and smiled as if she could create herself a shell in the place, never to come out.

It was stupid and irrational, but well, she was clumsy and if he didn't look out for her safety, she would fall off one of the ladders and break her ankle.

Or worse her neck…

Later that evening, he had to witness his mother making Mai practice her handwriting and then to watch, slightly amused, as his mother tried to correct the village accent that often reflected in her voice when she spoke in excitement.

Mai was doing a perfect job being a disaster – it came so naturally to her; she just had to sit at a table and she could break a champagne flute just by looking at the glass, she spoke with food in her mouth and often staggered to the chair, her feet caught in the long, billowing skirts. And though Mai was doing everything that would earn her the thousand pounds; he wasn't sure about his mother. No matter how many mistakes Mai made, his mother sighed patiently and then corrected it – until Mai was so weary that she adhered to her rules.

It would be amusing to watch both the women struggling with their goals.

Only if…

The clock chimed midnight and Oliver looked up at the time-piece, running a hand through his hair – lately, his nightmares had started again, the same scenes over and over again and somehow he never seemed to outgrow them, they seemed to be strengthening every time he had them. It probably meant something, but he tried not to ponder upon those possibilities.

If he didn't take care – Luella would come to know; and he couldn't risk that.

Never.

The opening of the door made him start.

And Mai stood in the doorway, lantern in hand, head poking inside as she scanned the library.

No one would believe her if she told them her real age – snooping was not a trait of those who had outgrown their adolescence but Mai was an exception to it.

Her eyes met his wary ones and widened.

"Naru?" She questioned and stepped inside. "You're here!"

The triumphant look in her eyes could only translate to the fact that she'd known that he would be here.

_Damn._

Thankfully, this time she was properly dressed – in a billowing robe but she was still scampering barefoot about the house… he shook his head internally.

_This woman._

"What are you doing here?" He pretended to be mildly surprised. "You should be sleeping."

"That applies to you too." He wasn't surprised to see her but when she placed a steaming tea-cup on his desk, he could only stare at the cup. "Don't tell me that time moves differently for Lord Davis."

How did she know that he liked tea – well, English people loved tea generally – but how did she know that he liked Earl Grey specifically?

"Earl Grey?"

"The very one." She was already unrolling the ladder to another shelf in the library section. "I was a tea-maid before yoou bought me here, Naru – I know how everyone takes their tea."

He nodded at the explanation and reached for the tea-cup, taking a moment to take in the aroma, just to be sure that she did not brew it like Wendall. If his olfactory senses were correct, the tea was steeped to the flavour which he liked and although his staff was the best in the whole Continent but he had yet to drink the perfect tea.

Not that her tea would be perfect – she was a maid, how could she know how an aristocrat like him took his tea.

But he would take back his statement.

The tea's flavour seemed to invade his senses… it was like her, he thought wryly, loud in taste, expressive.

It was perfection.

And then he wondered how such perfection could come to an imperfect person.

"You see, Naru." She was talking to him, perhaps, but he was too absorbed in the tea to acknowledge her. "I read the book yesterday – I'm fair at accounting but I still can't decide which business to start."

He hummed satisfactorily… it was not as if he could say anything while drinking, could he?

"Naru - ?" She turned to face him and raised an eyebrow at the image of him sipping tea. "Do you like it? Is it upto your tastes?"

He considered the answer for a moment before leaning back in the seat and crossing his legs.

"It matches that of Antoine."

She did not appear disappointed but instead shrugged, as if saying that the comparison was good enough, and turned back to finding another book to read.

Antoine's tea – was in truth – a shabby comparison to hers… but he wouldn't tell her that.

"Oh and before I forget," She had been tapping her chin but blinked suddenly, searcing the pockets of her robe for something. "I made a list."

He placed down the saucer and raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"A list?"

"Yes of course," She pushed a piece of paper towards him. "We are together in defeating the Duchess, aren't we? So we need a plan."

"You made a plan?"

She made deterring his mother seem like a battle, but then again, he mused – that proved she was smart enough _not _to underestimate his mother. Well, he thought, picking up the list, he might as well read it.

**'A List Of Things I Should Do To Scare The Duchess Away'**

He liked the sound of that – he would, if it meant that his mother would never try her hand at matchmaking again.

_**1. **Be Late. The Dowager said the town loves punctuality._

_**2. **Display a __complete__ lack of fashion sense. The Duchess said the ton __**abhors**__ people who are blind to vogue._

Noting the emphasis she put on words, he concluded that she rarely had the time to write before – her writing was sloppy, as if she had hastily scribbled this list.

_**3. **Appear to be __morose and melancholy__. The ton __**hates**__ sulky people._

He smirked – true that, although for some reason the town tolerated him- maybe because of his face.

_**4. **Swear/Curse/Blasphemize. __**Point**__ the Dowager's curses out because she hates people who correct her._

_**5. **Stumble/Stoop/Stagger._

_To be continued…_

Oliver knew that he'd chosen the correct person for this job – if Mai could manage to do everything on the list not only would the ton negate her but his mother would be tired and by any luck, would abandon this plan entirely.

"So do you have anything to add?" Mai twisted the sash of her robe, fidgeting as his eyes roamed over the list. "You can write it down."

Suddenly he had an exceptional plan in his mind, at least in his opinion – one that would guarantee an improve in his mood.

"I do have one thing in mind." She attentively listened as he dipped the pen in an inkpot and began to write. "One thing that would make the ton absolutely hate you. Especially my mother."

"Really?"

"Hmm…" He punctuated his sentence with a final dot and pushed the list towards her, her head was cocked to one side in curiosity but she picked up the list and began to read.

_**6. **Make tea for Lord Davis first thing in the early morning and at night. Or whenever he demands._

She looked sceptical, only a bit. "Are you sure?" He watched as she teased her lower-lip, thinking the suggestion over. "I don't understand how this relates to scaring the Duchess away."

He raised an eyebrow, challengingly.

"A Duchess never makes tea." He explained, patiently. "Not even for herself…"

"So if I make tea for you," Mai slowly thought it over. "The Duchess will think that I shall never leave my past behind and will abandon the plan!"

Well – putting it like that was just as good. Anything as long as he got his tea.

"Exactly."

She smiled up at him – that slowly spreading one and his satisfaction wavered a bit. "Naru – you're brilliant!"

He liked the way she said it – although it was maybe the praise that was infecting his mind.

"I know."

It was easy to pretend that he didn't need to put up barriers when talking with her – that she couldn't and wouldn't ever use his secrets against him. That somehow she was so unpretentious that he could tease her all he liked but she would never expect things of him.

She would never expect him to smile at her or make unnecessary compliments like he had to do, perfunctorily, with other girls.

Mai seemed to be oblivious to his train of thoughts and merely picked up another book from the shelf and turned to him, neatly folding her list and tucking it away in her pocket.

"Good night Naru." She was about to leave when she stopped midway and turned back to him. "I can call you Naru, can't I? If it won't put you in a foul mood tomorrow."

His own voice lingered in his mind, the harsh words that he'd said at the table – if she had been any other girl she would have cried the house down but to his surprise (and relief) Mai had done nothing of sort and had kept quiet instead.

"Hmm…" He nodded absently and then flattened his mouth into his ever-present frown. "You may leave Mai."

"Please don't stay up late." She was saying as she went outside, strands of her brown hair tousled gently by the breeze coming from the window. "I can see the shadow beneath your eyes, Naru."

It was as if she could see straight into him – not just the shadows beneath his eyes, so he got up with little conviction, knowing that sleep would be rare that night, but he couldn't tell her that.

But when he went to his room, he was surprised to find a steaming cup of tea with a note pressed beneath the saucer, placed on the bedside.

Strange how one day of seeing it, he could recognize her scrawl almost anywhere.

'_Dear Naru,_

_I think you have problems sleeping – so I made __**THIS**__. Hope it helps._

_p.s: Did you think __**nobody**__ would notice? _

_Yours truly,_

_Mai.'_

He could only gaze at the note, crisp, beneath his fingertips – before he crumbled it up, throwing it into the fireplace, watching as the parchment shrivelled up, crackling as the flames consumed it… all evidence destroyed. He would never admit that the tea helped him sleep, not when everything else had failed – sleeping powders, books, alcohol, exhaustion. He would never admit that she had anything to do with his slightly better sleep; he wouldn't tell her that when he saw Gene in his dreams that night, his twin just kept smiling but said nothing else.

And he would be damned if he'd let her know any of that.

The easiest way in one's mind – he mused, drowsily – often turned out to be the most difficult one.

_The most disastrous one._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_Oh yeah Noll...you better watch out! Here comes Mai..._

_I just hope you all liked the chapter, well more to come 'fellas! But I think this story will be going on hiatus for a while since I have exams (and I have to ace them this time because they sort of decide which colleges I can opt for) which are pretty serious. So I expect I'll be gone for this month at least. If I get any time at all - I'll try to write!_

_Thanks for reading though. Review (your suggestions matter a lot) and earn a cookie ~_

**-borntoflyhigh-**


	6. The Moments That Enchant Us

**'And Then Came A Duke'**

_**In Which The Heroine is Jealous, The Hero Cannot Decide What Is More Disastrous And The First Dance Begins…**_

**Disclaimer: **_I do NOT own GH..._

**_A/N:_**_ And there you go folks! The 6th chapter to the series; I am so terribly sorry for the hiatus but my exams just... engulfed me. I was not even able to contact all my reviewers so I am sorry for all that. ANYWAYS, here you all go!_

* * *

><p>"<em>There's a devil in your smile that's chasing me…"<em>

–Ready To Run/One Direction

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>A<strong>__nd the time arrives, dear readers! Lady Mortram's 25th Yule Crush is just a night away. Most have wonder and shall throughout the ages of how an event in the middle of April came to be called a Yule ball. That, readers, is a very long story including the mention of coinciding balls, a duchess with sharp claws, mistletoe and inexplicably, a parrot. _

_Though the arrival of a certain miss-to-be-future-duchess is incentive enough for everyone to attend. It is reported that she will wear an ivory gown that will have men tripping over one another to be introduced to her. 'Tis a pity that she's betrothed to the Duke of Shibuya._

_And she has a man like Lord Davis as her brother-in-law. Bother!" – _The Snitch, April 1816.

* * *

><p>Out of all the reactions she had expected; <em>this <em>was really the most surprising.

"I thought he'd like some tea? Don't you think?"

The servants in the corridor openly gawked at her.

This morning was just getting even more strange – she had woken up at the crack of dawn, energized to be disaster that Lord Davis so wanted to see her making, she had examined her list and resolutely promised herself that she would do work worth the money.

Then she had prowled the corridors until the clock struck ten, restlessly.

"_Well…"_ Mai stretched the word, raising an eyebrow inquisitively and looking around at the servants. "Will you let me go in or not?"

This had to be the funniest thing about the moment; she had been standing in the hallway where Lord Davis' rooms were located and the servants hadn't budged from the door as if Naru would snap their necks if she put a toe in his room. She remembered what he had written on the list and she admired his capability to use such a trivial thing to his advantage, his plan had to be good judging from the scandalous looks on the servants' faces.

"I – I – " Wendall looked like he would suffer from a stroke if she spoke one more word. "I d-don't really think , absolutely certain that - "

She sighed…

It seemed that snobby aristocrats chose to wake up when half the world was deep in work; lazy behaviour she'd no doubt expected of course, she had served nobility on hand and foot nearly all her life.

She just hadn't expected it from Naru… really, how _extremely _foolish.

"It isn't proper." The butler finally got the words out of his mouth as if uttering them had cost him all of his breath. "It absolutely _isn't _proper."

_Proper?_

"What do you mean?"

Now she was truly perplexed, she thought they were worried that she might make Naru from his sleep but what it had to with propriety – she had no bloody idea.

"What?" She asked again, just in case she had heard incorrectly

"You. Can't. Go. In. His. Room." The butler enunciated, short of breath, eyes wide in surprise. "It would be highly improper."

"Improper?!" Mai laughed, openly. _R_eally? "What is so improper about me taking a cup of tea in his room?"

A maid in the far corner of the corridor looked about ready to faint.

"Miss… that is, Mai." The butler composed himself, standing tall over her. "Here in London, an unmarried lady such as you cannot enter – "

Oh?

_Oh…_

_Uh- oh._

"Oh _that._" Mai stopped him quickly, sparing him the whole explanation, the tips of her ears burning – the teacup she held trembled in her grasp. "I don't think – haha – really – this is Na – Lord Davis we are talking about – he has shown absolutely, _absolutely _no interest – "

At that inopportune moment, the oak door to his room opened and there stood the mortal paragon of chilling beauty. He looked as if he had never laid his head on the pillow, his eyes were as alert as ever but the shadows under them had disappeared, Mai noticed cheerfully, not that he looked hideous with them, just more human, less dangerous and somehow more dangerous to her with all the vulnerability in them.

He also looked quite a bit… she stared at his face searching for a word and getting none close to it… _happy?_

_Gasp!_

"Why are you all standing outside my door and causing such a din?" His eyes raked over all of them, the servants, Wendall and finally stopped when they caught her gaze, as if he had his answer in her form. "Yes?"

Her pulse skittered… just a bit.

His eyes weren't completely blue, they were ringed with black and speckled with barely noticeable flecks of grey.

_They were mesmerising._

"I bought you tea." She mentally congratulated herself on her imitation of the most lofty voice ever, even in the face of his devastating eyes. "I hope it is to your liking."

She did not know what she expected, but for the second time that day, she was surprised.

He raised an eyebrow at her, his eyes coldly acute as he mentally analysed the situation. She could almost guess what he was thinking; why she was here, what flavour the tea was, with what motive she made it and why she was staring at him so strangely – exactly in that order.

Then his eyes flashed…not dangerously… just so _wickedly._

Suddenly, he took the teacup from her hands with a dexterity that left her speechless and banged the door in her face, completely ignorant of her indignant sputtering at this cavalier treatment. As if she was one of his servants and not a guest of his mother's, as if conversation with her this early in the morning was noxious.

And then he vanished into his room…just in time to let her see the devilish smirk that played on the edge of his lips as he shut the door. As if the world was at his feet.

_As if the obnoxious man owned her…_

For a moment, they all stood confounded, a bewildered look apparent on their faces, shooting curious glances at each other until it finally dawned on Mai.

"What the - ?"

. . . .

Then all she was red. A dark, livid hue flashing in front of her eyes, swirling with anger and fury and indignation.

_The devil!_

"Naru…" She growled low in her throat before she started pounding his door with her small fists. "Come out! Come out you arrogant, obnoxious, insufferable man!"

The servants tried valiantly to hold back but she continued her rant until she had ensured that she had run out of all possible swear words invented in the English language. Her hand itched to claw out the _oh-so mesmerising _eyes she had earlier praised internally.

"Go away Mai." He called from inside the room when she started kicking at the door that wouldn't budge. "Do you have nothing else to do than pester me?"

"I'll have my revenge, you, you – "

The maids covered their ears as she unleashed another string of curses before stomping her feet and stalking away to her chambers.

This particular aristocrat would be the death of her; she had just done him a huge awakening favour and he had done what to express his gratitude.

Oh yes – he had shut the door in her face. How very thankful of him.

But her vengeful plotting stopped when she saw the Duchess sailing across the corridor with Fleur in her wake, the most indignant expression on her imperial face; eyebrow arched perfectly.

_Oh Dear God, no…_

"Mai Taniyama…"She inquired in her softest, deceptively cunning voice. "What did you just _do?!_"

* * *

><p>Breakfast… he decided, savagely amused with the whole situation, was now officially his favourite meal of the day.<p>

"…And you thought it prudent to kick his door!?" His mother hollered over toast, each word a sharp rebuke to the girl who sat at the table across him. Mai's head was bowed, hands clasped in her lap as she winced at every word. "And then you swore?! Is this how a lady behaves in the face of cavalier treatment?! What have I taught you child?!"

Mai flinched a little but he took perverse pleasure in her discomfort. If he was suffering, he'd let her have some taste of her own medicine.

"Mother would you pass that tray…"

She shot him a look which clearly indicated that she was supremely irritated, though she gave him the tray all the while glaring at him and Mai.

Mai fidgeted under the scrutiny… he buttered his toast.

The only thing that stopped him from interlacing his fingers and cackling evilly was the last shred of dignity she had spared him. It had to be the tea, it was actually making him look forward to the rest of the day – a thought he'd never really had for quite a long time. He knew now what his wish was – he wanted to make Mai angry, a dangerous thought indeed but honestly better than his lust-driven thoughts about her. He'd met legions of women and none of them abandoned their composure at a snap of his fingers – Mai did, with any type of snap from him, really. It was more amusing than signing the stack of papers piled up high on his desk.

So he relaxed in his chair, just a bit, to enjoy the drama as it unfolded.

"_This _is absolutely _disgraceful_! You let him rouse your catlike emotions, you let _him –" _His mother shot him a dirty look which he returned with his most indifferent gaze. "- _him, _break your valuable composure…"

"Your Grace, but I only uttered a few swear words…" Mai protested and he saw the child-like facet to her squirming. "I swear I did."

"The swear words you used made the footmen blush, girl." Luella took a dainty sip of her tea, hawk-like blue eyes directed at Mai all the time. "Anyways, that is not the point. What I fail to comprehend is how you let him destroy the teachings I gave to you?!"

There went his mother, yelling at Mai once more.

This time he did cackle albeit internally as he lifted the teacup to his mouth.

"What I fail to understand is why you didn't kick him in the – " She made vague motions in the air with her hand. " – and, and just stood there gawking!"

He almost spluttered in the teacup.

Mai coloured and choked on her toast.

"There is no need to blush." His mother calmly buttered her toast never minding the appalled look from Mai and the cough from his direction. "I expect you to have a fair grasp of anatomy to understand self-defence."

And there, at the breakfast table went his mother, explaining self-defence in relevance to male anatomy to Mai, of all people; as if she was discussing the weather…_it will rain for two more days, the pavements are wet, the sun never shines in London, you should have kicked my son in the…_

"Mother…do stop, please." He knew uttering 'please' would make his mother do exactly as he desired. "This is not exactly conversation for breakfast."

His mother rounded on him.

"Oh…" She raised an eyebrow. "Now my son shall teach me breakfast manners. Excellent! Shall we get started with the lessons son?"

"Mother." He sighed exasperatedly. "There is no need to be – "

"Caustic?" She shot at him. "Well, if I am being caustic…what have you been for the past two days?"

A quiet enveloped the table before Luella spoke up again.

"Tonight is Lady Mortram's ball." She looked around imperiously. "We all must do our utmost best to ensure that Mai has a smooth introduction into society."

He nodded. That was his only escape.

"You both shall stay away from each other as much as possible, because whenever the two of you stand within two inches of each other, there is bound to be disaster."

He made a mental note to stand at Mai's side, the whole evening – no matter how boring that may prove to be.

"After you _leave_, Mai will work with me on her presentation." She shot him a look that meant he must leave the house. "It is too early to do anything but pray that the ton will like her. I do hope we had more time…"

And he saw that it was the exact moment to drop the news.

"Speaking of time limits." He folded the newspaper back after the quick perusal. "I'm decreasing the time limit I gave to you. It's two weeks – not a month."

There, after lengthy debate with himself this morning, he had decided that this was in his best interests – he couldn't lean on Mai alone to deter his mother, he needed to make this task impossible and stressful.

He finally stood up, shrugging into his coat, completely ignoring the wide-eyes from Mai and the gasps of outrage from his mother.

"But Noll! You c-can't possibly mean to -!"

"Good day, Mother." He paused a bit, his hand resting on the crest of the chair, eyes lingering on Mai. "I hope you refrain from causing any more trouble."

"You can only hope." She mumbled, biting viciously into a muffin after she shot a look at his mother as if communicating something of vital import.

Luella patted Mai's hand sympathetically, a look of vengeance in her eyes directed at him.

_God deliver him from revengeful mothers._

"I know Mai, dear. I know…" She leaned back in her seat, the dragon of a woman with cold-blue eyes. "I'll forgive you this time for not hitting him _there. _It's rather out of reach, I admit."

He turned on his heel and walked away from the evil cackling of one woman and the abashed exclamations of another.

_Women._

* * *

><p>"What –" Mai gritted her teeth, her outstretched arms flailing as she tried to maintain her balance. "- is the point of making me walk as if I owned a palace."<p>

The Duchess who had been sewing calmly, looked over her embroidery, put down the hoop and interlaced her fingers.

"The point is to make you _feel _like you own a palace." She explained. "It is so you are not crushed by the haughtiness of the ton. Continue."

With a Bible balanced perfectly on her head, Mai linked her arms in front of her and continued to descend the marble staircase with the poise of a genteel lady.

"So, Miss Mai…" The Duchess inquired in a false imitation of an English lady. "We heard that your father is a farmer, is that true."

"Indeed it is true," Mai replied as placidly as the cows on her farm, minding her feet, her agony evident on her face. "But he owns a lot of land, so we are naturally a rich family."

"Oh for God's sake, smile child."

"I am smiling…"

"Frankly," The Duchess took off her spectacles. "You look as if you would like to tear this lady to pieces."

_Yes and more… perhaps incinerate the shreds or drive a dagger through her heart, whoever the hell she is._

Mai merely growled low in her throat…

"Hmph. Well, what are your accomplishments?"

"Uh…" Mai paused, carefully adjusting the Bible on her head as she prepared to ascend the staircase. "Sewing, reading, making tea –"

"Tut…" Luella sighed in exasperation. "No mention of tea-making or cooking whatsoever."

"Alright." This was pure torture. Pure, unadulterated torture. "Sewing, reading, playing the pianoforte – wait a minute, what if they ask me to play the piano?"

"Play."

Mai raised an eyebrow, pausing in her grand walk.

"I don't even know how to play!"

"Well then pray, play and then act as if you're the next Mozart."

"Oh, right…easy for you to say."

They continued in this fashion for the next two hours until the Duchess dragged her off to the dressing room, Fleur chasing after her with the curling papers.

And at seven in the evening, Mai could not even recognize herself.

There was a lady sitting in an extremely graceful poise, her gloved hands interlaced, resting in her lap. The honey coloured gown shimmered in the evening light and curled in falls just before it reached her feet and the small flower buds in her chignon glinted in the lantern's glow.

She gleamed in the room, decorated so simply yet somehow so intricately that everything about her felt like a lie.

She felt like a fraud.

Mai turned away from her reflection just as the Duchess took a pearl necklace from the tray that Fleur held and fastened it around her neck, so tenderly as if Mai was her own daughter.

The thought very nearly made her cry… she was cheating this woman in the very worst way, by robbing her of all hope.

"Your Grace…" Her voice cracked at the end a bit. "I'm so – so terribly…"

The Duchess brushed a tear from her eyes and stopped her with a trembling hand.

"Stop, child." She waved her handkerchief in the air, sniffing. "This is not the time to be indulging in theatrics. We need to leave, immediately."

And so dragging Mai, she led her down the staircase.

Mai stopped for a moment, looking down the winding staircase, her heart in her mouth.

_It all started tonight._

But just as she was about to descend, her hand gently laid on the railing, a strange vision assaulted her.

She would walk down that staircase, graceful in every light, her poise speaking of elegance and _he _would be standing at the very end, awaiting her. His indifferent expression changing to wild curiosity as she descended.

It shattered when she reached the end of the staircase , widening into the silent main hall, with no one anticipating her.

Somehow, her heart lurched and then a corner of it broke.

"Are you alright?" The Duchess sailed ahead of her. "Do you need any assistance?"

"No." Her voice was pathetically weak. "No, Your Grace. I'm ready."

The Dowager turned over her shoulder, a smirk on the edge of her lips.

"I know. But are you ready to face the truth?"

* * *

><p>"Noll, man!"<p>

Oliver was on the verge of turning away from the setting and blocking the fact that he could see Yasuhara sauntering in his direction, his wife on his arm but it was too late. Yasu had already spotted him and was hollering the pathetic nickname his brother had given him for all of London to hear.

A few simpering girls to his right, giggled and cooed adorable at the idiotic sobriquet. He wished them to Hell.

Along with Yasu.

And his wife.

"Oliver!" Yasu nearly yelled as he patted his shoulder. "I knew we'd find you here."

He raised an eyebrow.

"He means he knew we'd find you in the middle of a feminine throng." Lady Masako explained offhandedly and then curtsied gracefully. "Lord Davis."

"Lady Masako." He bowed stiffly and tipped his head in Yasu's direction. "Yasu."

"I'm an aristocrat too, Noll." The bespectacled man petulantly retorted. "Yet my beautiful wife gets the respect. Tut."

"Act like one and I'll acknowledge that you're a viscount."

"We're very surprised to see you here." Masako spoke again, her expression as neutral as ever. "The surprise is not very pleasing, I must add."

He gritted his teeth and smiled at the couple.

Yasu grinned.

Masako merely glared at him.

"I was also hoping that the two of you wouldn't be here." He retorted. "Wishing fervently."

Masako sniffed, nose in air. "Hmph. Well I hope you're supremely disappointed."

He flexed his hand… hoping he could channel away his irritation somehow.

"My wife." Yasu looked at his wife, adoration and worship in his gaze. "A lioness, indeed."

Oliver kept his jaw clenched in a false smile.

"So," Yasu looked at him, breaking the terse silence. "Are you finally wooing a woman?"

Hundreds of heads (all belonging to women) turned in their direction.

He almost prayed for divine intervention.

It did come…

Suddenly everybody in the hall stopped talking, thousands of heads turned to the doorway and it seemed as if a silence had gripped the room. The candlelight flickered and he craned his neck to look who had entered.

He almost lost his wits. Almost.

He saw a familiar woman, dressed in a gown that almost blended with the colour of her skin. Her hair shone in the light, the pearls glimmered and she took one step forward.

_Mai._

His mouth turned dry.

Then she curtsied so bloody elegantly that he felt the ripple of tension that ran through the men. They stared at her, sizing her up, assessing her, mentally planning courtships, the depraved thoughts that ran through every single man's mind.

He wanted to snap their necks, make them carnage.

_He had warned her…_

He took a step forward and then two more, making his way through the crowd as it parted for him, naturally.

When he reached her side, he felt a red, livid haze envelope his mind and without thinking he took her gloved hand and tucked it in the crook of his elbow, leading her away to some corner he couldn't even clearly see yet.

A tremor ran through her and he analysed the crowd as the men craned their necks to stare at her; he glared until all of them turned away. Then he cracked the knuckles of his other hand, making the gesture loud and clear – this woman was under his protection, if they even took a step in her direction, no matter how innocuous it might be, he would…

"Naru." She whispered placidly, an unnaturally bright smile on her face. "Uh… I hope you know that you're causing a scene."

"I'm not." He bit out the words, almost snarling. "_You _caused a scene."

She did not even flinch. Instead she laughed as if he had made some great big joke and he understood what she was doing – playacting.

"Naru." She tried to convey her anger when she pinched his arm. He barely felt the pain through the sleeve of his shirt, he did however feel the scrap of her glove against it. "Let me go."

Bloody hell.

They reached the terrace and he whisked her away to the farthest corner of the room.

"I told you to wear something less inciting." He tightened his grip on the railing as he towered over her. "I _enunciated _so clearly that I couldn't protect you against the men in the hall. Did I not?"

She was not even intimidated one single bit. Instead she stared at him as if he was a lunatic.

Which he was… considering the situation.

"I don't need protection by you." She harrumphed. "I can do it myself."

For a moment he was seized with the desire to show her all the ways he could ruin her tonight, all the ways she couldn't protect herself from him, from men who were thinking along the same lines, to show her that his ways of ruination were permanent.

Instead he distanced himself from her…

Was that a faded bruise on her neck?

"Fine." He clenched his jaw, he would ask her about it later in the library. "Have fun charming half the ton. Don't come to me running after you're ruined."

He thought he heard a sniff but he didn't turn back. He was too furious, too wrapped up in his own wants and priorities.

So he walked away.

* * *

><p>He thought that he was paying her to be a disaster… all she did was charm the snobs of England.<p>

Without conscious effort, it seemed.

She was like a butterfly, flitting from group to group, her smile a bright glow against the background of the orchestra, against the din of laughter. Mai was undoubtedly a success.

"Lady Cordelia." She curtsied perfectly. Her eyelashes fluttering in a shy manner as she spoke to the old widow. "It was a delight to meet you."

His mother looked as astonished as him, she gaped as Mai made numerous contacts around the hall, tipping the ton over their heads with her charm and vitality.

"I must say London is as refreshing as I have heard from my dear cousin." She was saying to someone, the crystal flute in her hand glinting in the candelabra. "I am _so_ enjoying it."

He couldn't understand why she was doing this.

Masako and Yasu were looking keenly at her, the lady of the night and when she caught their gaze, her eyes widened and something in her stance somehow _slumped_ as if she was exposed. Beside him Yasu's eyes widened in evident surprise and Masako gasped.

Mai froze and then after what seemed like an eternity, hurried over to them.

"Yasu." She whispered in fear as she curtsied. "Lady Masako."

Naru noted that this was the exact way he had addressed the couple and then it dawned on him.

_They knew each other._

Yasu's smile could light up the whole room.

He wanted to smash all of his teeth.

"Mai." He looked around and then swallowed as if surprised. "_You _are to be the next Duchess? Of Shibuya"

Mai nodded feebly.

"God." Masako shook her head as if to clear a fog. "Is it really you?"

"I'm sorry. This wasn't exactly planned. It just came as a surprise to me as well."

He looked at the trio, back and forth, trying to delve deeper into the situation.

"Oh my." Masako reiterated, stunned as if she had run out of word. "You look stunning."

"Thank you."

He couldn't understand why she looked near to tears when Masako said that and at that exact moment, Yasu looked at Masako and then nodded as if he could understand what she was silently telling him.

Then he took Mai's hand and spoke as if making some grand gesture.

"Miss Taniyama." He bowed over her hand, kissing the air above her glove. "Can I have the pleasure of this dance?"

Oliver restrained himself from maiming the man; he was married for God's sake. He watched, his eyes narrowed at the couple as they danced, Mai laughing pleasantly as they both spoke in hushed whispers.

Then he cast a glance at Masako who was standing beside him, her posture taut, so lady-like as if the idea of her husband dancing the first dance with a woman who was not her, did not bother her in the least. Perhaps she was used to the rakish Yasu straying from their marriage, as unlikely as it seemed.

He was disgusted.

"How are you so assured about his fidelity?" Tearing his eyes from the scene, he inquired, disdain evident in his voice.

What she said next surprised him…

"Because I know where he is every night." She glanced meaningfully at him, a smirk twisting her lips. "With me."

And with that she strode away as the dance ended, leaving him with the torturous knowledge that it was going to be a very long night.

* * *

><p>Mai did not even hear when he entered the library and gently closed the door behind him.<p>

She just danced around the room, humming to herself, arms outstretched in the stance of a waltz. Her mind whirred, a haze of colour and noise, the contagious laughter ringing in her head, the tinkling of crystal reverberating in her mind.

Tonight had been a dream. _Her_ dream. The best night ever since she was born.

No pain, no pressure, no work, nothing but delight, laughter.

_Acceptance…_

She laughed to herself and started singing as she circled the room- so it was no surprise when she almost jumped out of her bones when two strong hands stilled her in the middle of her waltz.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Everything inside her froze, her heart clenched as she stared up into his face, the harsh angle of his cheekbone, the predatory glint in his eyes, the tingling in her shoulder where his hands had been.

She took a deep breath and pulled herself to her full height.

"I was just…" She gestured lamely around the room, unable to look him in the eye. "… you know, looking for a book!"

He snorted to himself.

"Oh yes." He looked around the room. "And it requires you making strange gestures as you circle the room."

She clamped her mouth shut.

"I was dancing."

He feigned surprise. "Oh really."

For a moment both of them stopped and looked at each other. He, with a wariness that she wanted to chase away, she with barely hidden admiration. His eyes raked over her appearance and stopped on the chignon she had insisted that she didn't want Fleur to undo. She wanted him to see her closely in it.

This was getting silly… this infatuation on her part.

"I want to know what you meant to do by charming half the ton today."

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to search for an excuse, finding the perfect one.

"I'll cause disaster, after they come to like me." She spoke as matter-of-factly as possible. "It will be more permanent that way."

His piercing eyes assessed her, analysed every gesture she unconsciously made.

Then he nodded and she almost cried out in relief. This man scared her, more than she would like to admit; more than she wanted him too.

He finally let go of her shoulders and moved away, seating himself at his usual desk. He poured himself some wine as she scampered away to a corner, a blush dusting her cheeks, her hands growing clammy.

She was clumsy under his watch alone.

Drawing a book from one shelf and barely noticing what it was about, she asked as nonchalantly as humanly possible the one question that had driven her mad with curiosity.

"So," She paused and savoured his surprise as he looked up at her. Lord Perfect. "I heard that… Lady Masako was your fiancee once. Is that true?"

He looked up at her, one eyebrow raised as he set down the cup, a frown on his face.

"Yes." He confirmed.

"So," She took a deep breath. "Did you…actually like her?"

He steepled his fingers and looked cautiously at her.

"Yes."

Mai felt exasperation creep inside her veins.

"What I mean is…" She tried to find an alternative to the cursed word but couldn't find anything. "Did you love her?"

She knew she had surprised him. His lax posture suddenly became taut and he straightened in the chair as if to physically frighten her away from the topic… all she did was look at him resolutely.

"No."

A strange kind of giddiness swelled inside her and before she knew it, she was grinning madly – about what? She had no idea…

"Then why did you want to marry her?"

His answer wiped the grin off her face.

"She was convenient."

. . . .

Oh… maybe _she _too was convenient for him, just within reach, perfect for all his scheming.

She buried her head within the shelves to hide her from his gaze, the wounded look from her face but his next words pulled her right out of her misery.

"How do you know Yasu?"

He seemed resentful to her stammer and flush at his question.

"W-well I – I was his friend. We did some things together, he owed me a debt."

Naru did not look satisfied with the answer in the least, his questioning gesture just made her stammer all the more as she tried to avoid his look. But his eyes followed her everywhere, like a hawk tracking down its prey and she fidgeted as she searched the shelves for something to read.

"He looked quite friendly to me." Naru's clear voice called out again. "_Quite friendly."_

"Umm…yes… of course."

They were both silent for a few moments until Naru's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Who gave you that bruise on your neck?"

She dropped her books in surprise.

"Mai. I asked something."

It happened in a flash.

Her breathing became ragged as she was pulled into the bog of her memories, it came to her in short flashes… the memory of her uncle, the rancid smell in the room, the crack of the whip and his voice as he flicked it.

Then flung it towards her.

When she opened her eyes, she felt Naru's presence beside her, his hand on her elbow as if steadying her without touching her.

"It was nothing…" She tried to blink back the tears as they came, trying to stop the tremor from entering her voice. But his hand was warm and he made her feel so secure, just so damn _safe_. "Just… I just fell."

He said nothing… instead he undid a button on her gown...and then two...

"Naru!" She tried to turn around in surprise, her voice a yelp but his grip on her arm tightened. "Naru! Let go of me, you brute!"

"Quiet Mai."

She pleaded to God that he couldn't see what she so tried to hide from everyone – the marks of her weakness but he did.

He saw through them… through her.

His grip on her arm tightened and she broke down under his touch. Her shoulders trembled as she sobbed under the pressure and the memory of the pain; it came to her again, the voices, the stench, so vivid, so tangible as he traced a bruise on her back, then another one.

And when he spoke next, his voice was deadly; an odd combination of deceptive softness, barely tamed rage… a hoarse whisper.

"What the _hell_?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_Did ya like it? Drop a review, a comment, a suggestion, a correction, a rant - anything at all. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!_

_Love and cyber cookie jar,_

_**-borntoflyhigh-**_


	7. The Surprises That Baffle Us

**'And Then Came A Duke'**

_**In Which The Hero Is Outraged, The Heroine Is The Ton's Belle and The Hero Shows A New Side Of Himself…**_

**Disclaimer: **_I do NOT own GH._

**A/N: **_Thank you so much for the reviews! Everytime you reviewed you all put a smile on my face. This chapter is dedicated to all those who wanted me to update faster! Sorry for the delay. Do review and put in your ramblings and suggestions ^_^_

* * *

><p>"<em>Did you break but never mend?<em>

_Did it hurt so much you thought it was the end?" _

– _Flares/The Script._

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>D<strong>__id you hear it too! Did you see it too?! The way the beautiful woman in the ivory dress set flame to the ton – no doubt the Duchess has been very thorough in her search, Miss Taniyama is a diamond, shining, sparkling amongst the dull background of routinely balls. Charmant! But we're curious if you too, Readers, saw the possessive intent with which Lord Davis whisked her away? Delicious. There is nothing better we love than an adorable story about possessive brothers, don't you too?_

_Though many debated that the look in his eyes was far from brotherly…" – _The Snitch, April 1816.

* * *

><p>"What the <em>hell<em>?"

He couldn't see past the cold, silent rage that strangled him, couldn't feel past the hatred that he felt, the dependence that threatened his sanity.

The candlelight flickered, the bruises darkened into something more hideous and he clenched his jaw tightly.

"Please, Naru." Her voice was a whisper but he was relentless in his observation. "Stop."

He did not.

She stilled under his touch, her body going slack as he traced the fading remnants of a long-forgotten memory, it was as if she was too afraid to even move. He sensed her fear as it made her freeze, made her go numb, so far from the warmth that she truly was.

He felt something flare within him, strong, red and just so _livid…_

And then her shoulders started to tremble, silent, stifled sobs wracked her frame and all he could do was stand with his palm pressed against her back, covering one of the bruises, as if hiding it would make everything better. As if it would make her forget everything that had ever happened to her. As if he could just do something to make her lose track of all those gruesome moments.

He felt inadequate, just not enough…for _her._

"Who did this to you?" He had to keep himself from snarling at her. "Who could do this to _you_?"

She said nothing in reply to his silent inquiry, a shudder chased down her spine and he felt it beneath his fingertips; a wave so strong, a fear she could never overcome.

His nails bit into the skin of his fisted hand.

_Tell me everything. _He silently willed, lightly flexing his palm against the smooth skin of her back. _Tell me who did this to you._

"Mai?"

She said nothing, merely shook her head so violently that he had to check himself before he did something drastic to shake her out of her fear.

"_Mai."_

"Stop." The stark tone of her voice would have made a lesser man flinch. "Leave."

He did not.

Instead he buttoned her gown back, gently putting everything back in place before he turned her so she could face him.

"Say something."

But when he looked at her – _God, _it felt as if something had slammed against his chest.

She looked up at him, her face contorting and he was hit by something so queer, too strange to name.

At first a single tear flowed out of those brown eyes and she swiped it with the back of her hand, so defiantly, but then when the tears wouldn't stop flowing out she just stopped wiping them. She looked so…

_Tired._

"Mai." He wished he could be calmer for her sake, gentler but he wanted to unleash brutal torture at the one who had did this to her. "Tell _me. _Say something."

He would _kill _him. He would make him burn for all he'd put her through.

For a moment, she held his gaze, her chin proudly held as if she would rather die than tell him everything.

"I can't." The brown of her gaze flashed at him, her whisper so critical. "I can't let him win, I just can't, Naru."

In the dark she seemed so small, so fragile.

Unconsciously, his hand reached out to tuck a lock of her smooth hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing against her cheek. He wanted her to tell him everything, he wanted to storm out of the room and break everything that came within his sight; he wanted to leave, just so she couldn't see how angry he was, just so he could remain calm.

But he stayed.

His inadvertent gesture shook something loose within her and he watched, astonished as her eyes scrunched up, reaching up to him with a cry so painful that he had to keep his temper in hold by a tenuous thread.

And when she threw her arms around his neck, he stopped thinking altogether.

His world contracted until it consisted of the woman who was clinging to him as if he was the last piece of sanity, of security that she wanted to cling to as she broke. She cried against his shoulder, her heaving sobs making his chest constrict until he was not sure how he could ever breathe again, her small fists pounding against his ribs.

All he did was hold her…

"I hated him!" She was whispering in a wild desperation that made him want to _strangle _someone. "I hated him!"

_Her Uncle…_

He threaded his fingers into her soft hair, plucking the pins out of the coiffure as the curls were freed. "I know."

"I tried to be enough for all of them…" Her arms tightened around him. "All I wanted to do was be enough! Just _damn…_enough."

He touched the small of her back, not knowing how to make _this _stop. How to take the moment back to where she teased him, her eyes filled with a vitality he had missed in any other eye.

"And then my cousin…she was just a child. A girl." Her voice became harsh and he realized something so crucial – she wasn't crying about _her _bruises – it was all about the wounds that her little cousins had got. "But when I tried to stop him, he just flung the whip at me and…" Her voice cracked again and all they could hear was the crackling of the fire in the grate.

It somehow filled the suffocating silence.

"I tried to make the wounds stop hurting and Bel cried so much." Mai was not with him anymore, she was back at home, a haunted look in her eyes that he wanted to erase physically. "It was torture that night. I tried everything to make the pain stop. I swear I did!"

He whispered words into her ear, soothing words, anything that came to his mind against the fury building within him.

"Then I stopped trying." She clutched the collar of his shirt, the sound of her whisper so small. "Because the pain never _stopped._"

His hand fisted into the back of her nightgown, twisting the fabric in his hands.

He did not know what to say. He had held Luella when she grieved for Martin but Luella's mourning was not wild, her fear was more silent, more controlled around him.

So he let instinct rule the moment.

"It's going to be alright." He spoke in her ear, keeping his voice low and soft. "I'm going to make it alright."

He had no idea how.

The candlelight flickered as she gazed up at him, unshed tears in her eyes.

"I'm going to mutilate him. Until he can't see, until he can't think. Until _you're_ satisfied."

Her lips parted as if beholding some wonder inside of him.

He expected her to agree with him, to tell him to do whatever came first to his mind, whatever was the most torturous.

What she said next was surprising and somehow not so surprising at the same time.

"No." She murmured, her fingers clutching fistfuls of his shirt. "Just hold me. _Please_."

He closed his eyes, trying hard not to concentrate on how she fit perfectly in his arms, the way she let her fingers trace the shadows underneath his eyes, the way she looked at him as if her universe comprised of him alone.

For a moment she was silent as her hand smoothed his unruly collar, as if the gesture calmed her – her touch was light and he sighed in relief.

She had stopped crying.

_Thank God._

He looked down at the woman in his arms and let his fingers smooth her hair. God knew this was the last time he would ever touch her; he wanted her to remember it, at least the irrational side of his brain did, he wanted her to dream about it, he wanted to drive her insane with desire, chase away whatever pain she feared

He wanted to remember it too. He wanted to memorize the moment, the feel of her hair against his fingers, the feel of her skin underneath his palm.

So he held her just a little bit longer because he was selfish, because he could never remember having this side to him before and she let her fingers slip into his hair.

"See Naru." Her gaze flickered up at him and his control almost slipped away. "So compassionate…"

He lowered his defences. Just this once.

He put her down gently, on a settee near his desk.

"Idiot."

Turning to pour a glass of claret for her, he paused to think about his plans, her plans, the whole scheme and all he wanted to do was forget the damned ploy. He wanted an honest moment in his life, one devoid of all conspiracies, all types of strategies that he made to win a game.

_Hell…_

He felt so restless, so full of a white energy that he knew could only be channelled out of his system once he'd exacted his revenge from that pathetic excuse of a man that she called her uncle.

But when he turned to give her the glass, a sigh escaped him almost involuntarily.

She was asleep. Her head lolled against the crest of the settee and the silent snoring sounds that she made amused him, it was this ability of her to sleep all over the place that somehow fascinated him. So again sighing, this time with exhaustion, he picked her up from the settee and walked out of the library.

He still couldn't comprehend what had passed between them earlier.

All he knew that this moment had nothing to do with his compassion or with fatigue with the wine he'd imbibed earlier just to banish her from his mind.

He knew he was losing.

He couldn't bring himself to care tonight…

* * *

><p>She woke up to light trying to pry apart her bleary eyelids.<p>

Shielding her eyes with the back of her hand, Mai tried to sit up in bed, her joints creaking at the least possible movement.

Emphasis on tried; all she could do was flop back into bed, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Her back burned, her eyes stung with unshed tears and her body protested against the very idea of waking. A hundred thoughts assaulted her all at once, a blur of sounds and emotions flooding her brain.

_Good God. _

"Easy, Mai." A familiar baritone pierced her consciousness. "You're in no condition to sit up."

_Naru…_

She wholly believed him.

"What happened to me?"

Her throat was parched from God knew what, whenever she tried to form a word her whole thinking process ruptured.

He handed her a glass of water which she eagerly downed in one single gulp.

It was too awkward even to look at him; but she still managed a peak. This time though, he looked like he had been through hell and back, his eyes had faint shadows under them and his posture was tall, menacing as he paced the room and she discovered that she knew what the stance signified.

He was devising a plan.

And he was in the room with her. In the morning – for the first time since her arrival at the mansion.

The chains linked together…

Something dawned on her.

_Her room... _

She bolted in bed.

"What are you doing here?!"

He threw her a look of complete indifference, pausing in his thoughtful stride.

"What do you suppose?"

Her face burned at the inappropriate thoughts that rampaged in her mind.

"I…uh…mean that –" She gestured lamely. "- you know… you're not supposed to be here. In my chamber."

He raised an eyebrow as if the news was a surprise.

_Which it was so not…_

"_You _asked me to stay." Naru said as if that explained the matter, he then proceeded to loudly shut the window of her room as if the streaming light disturbed him… the gesture made her grimace in indignation. "So you shouldn't be asking such an inane question."

She winced.

_Idiot._

"But you should have gone before I woke." She cast an accusatory finger in his direction. "_You _meant to embarrass me!"

He almost smiled again and a memory flashed; she had seen his smile last night – lopsided and uncertain.

Her heart raced at the vision.

"It is worth the wait, I assure you." His expression changed to something very serious; a frown tilted his mouth downwards, his eyebrows almost knit together and she saw him run a hand through his hair. "Last night…"

_God, don't remind me…_

"There is no need to talk about it!" She interrupted him, hoping that her smile was convincing enough. "I understand."

He shot her an irate look.

"I think you do not." He paused in his pacing and turned to face her. "You were distraught last night. You did not know what you were doing. All that… intimacy –" He seemed to internally flinch at the word. "- it was because you were extremely afraid."

Hah.

Oh, now _that_ was a first-rate joke. Her fear was only a part of it all; she had wanted to tell him, to let loose every secret she harboured, to cling to him and never let him go.

She coloured and nodded.

_Pathetic._

"You asked me to stay. I did." He explained impatiently. "Because you were crying in your sleep. Leaving you would have been a bad idea on the whole."

"Oh."

"I did what any other man would have done."

Any other man would have taken advantage of her at that moment. He had not.

She marvelled at the way he went to lengths to explain to her how much he did not want to stay but had done so out of some misplaced sense of honour and obligation.

"My offer still stands. I will ignore the fact that last night you deliberately neglected your duty to be impossible; I will leave you to work out the whole plot yourself. Make yourself intolerable."

His acrid words went and etched themselves in her mind.

"…So we will have to stop meeting in the library." Sometime later, his exemplary speech ended but she was too bored and somehow too angered by something unknown to notice. She just nodded heedlessly. "I don't want to ruin your reputation and if we continue, the servants might become suspicious to it. I think you understand."

_Oh I do…_

Even she wouldn't admit it to herself but she actually looked forward to meeting the narcissist over there; she always felt a heady surge of triumph when he stepped into the library, scowling as he feigned distrust, about the same time at which she entered. As if he was unconsciously stalking her. As if he wanted to be _near _to her.

It seemed not.

She stood up from the bed, throwing away the quilt and walked towards him. An unknown feeling powered each step, fuelled her to approach him, tossing her unbound hair over one shoulder – maybe it was the self-confidence she had gained from the Dowager, maybe it was a fragment of her real self, buried beneath all the drudgery.

_Hmph._

"I do." She said, wishing that she wouldn't sound so savage. "I _so _do."

He almost backed away a little.

She kept on approaching him, the stiff silence hanging in the air and he kept backing away until he was almost out of the door into the wide and silent corridor.

"Now if you'll excuse me." She plastered a sickly, sweet smile on her face. "I have to change for breakfast, _my lord._"

Then she slammed the door in his face.

* * *

><p>She had called him by his formal epithet not by that nickname she had created.<p>

The thought irked him more than it should have.

"Whatever it is that has put you into such a beastly mood –" His mother had the good sense to keep an inquiry out of her voice as she spread jam on a muffin. "- please do refrain from taking it out on the poor toast."

He nearly pierced the bread with his knife.

"I think it has something to do with Mai." He caught the guarded note in Luella's voice. "She has a singular talent to get under your skin."

This time he did stab the toast.

An image floated in his mind; her skin blemished with those wounds, her scrunched up eyes, the whimpers she made when he held her, how she broke at the slightest push from him as if she had been keeping the secrets holed up inside her for too long. How she resisted as he urged her to tell him about those bruises, as if afraid that he might think of her a weakling.

"Noll?"

He put down his fork with an irritated sigh.

"Mother. Has Mai ever…" He let his fist clench as he carefully picked his words. "…said anything about her past?"

Luella's eyebrows shot up as her eyes narrowed to blue slits.

"Hmm…well." She bit into the muffin, thoughtfully. "I suppose one can only conclude that she was – "

At that critical moment, the door to the dining room was swung open by Wendall as he announced _her _presence.

He felt like he was treading on a thin wire. Her mere presence in the room felt vital and suffocating at the same time and he hated the mystery she represented, the way she never fit into the categories he had made for normal people, the way she constantly surprised him.

It was just so _frustrating. _

"Good morning, Your Grace." She swept into a curtsy and then turned towards him, her posture defiant as if she was challenging him to say something. "_My lord…"_

He had been honourable for the very first time in his life; so unlike he's infamously ruthless self and what had it gotten him, pray tell?

Oh yes…a door shut – no – _slammed _in his face.

"Goodness!" His mother said, peering at the both of them from her quizzing glass. "I feel a distinct tension between the two of you."

She had realized it _now_?

Hah.

Mai said nothing in reply but merely served herself some boiled eggs.

"Why ever are you both behaving like deprived dogs?" His mother continued with all the finesse of a charging bull before her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she sent him a pointed look. "Have you seduced her?"

He would have spat the tea out if not for his legendary control over facial expression.

Mai choked on her toast and coughed violently as his mother patted her back viciously.

"Mother, I have not seduced Mai." Reasoning calmly with his mother was the only way he could deter the woman. "She is to be Gene's wife or have you forgotten?

Luella pursed her lips in wariness. "A man and woman behave like you after _it _occurs. If you know what I mean."

When she said it that way, the meaning could not remain hidden for a long while; idly he wondered how in the whole world did his mother manage to turn an event as innocuous as breakfast into something so risqué.

A misplaced talent, for sure…

"I have _not_ seduced your son, Your Grace." Mai followed suit and adopted the same placating tone as him. "He is soon to be my brother-in-law, is he not?"

_Liar._

He glared angrily at her while she merely chose to ignore him, instead concentrating upon toying with the food in her plate. This was irrational and so unlike him that he could do nothing but clench his jaw in a taut smirk as Luella glanced at the two of them before bursting out.

"How can the both of you be so calm this morn?!" She squawked. "We are on the verge of a social success! A breakthrough!"

"Hmph." Mai was appallingly quiet and he wanted to rouse her, watch her spar with him in her indignant voice. "She and _success. _Quite unbelievable."

She said nothing.

Her quiet strangled him like a noose. A morose Mai was atrociously intolerable to him, especially when she acted almost like a dead body without a single emotion crossing her face. So much like…

_Him._

"Noll!" His mother hushed him. "Quiet! Do you even understand that she is the ton's new belle? Just look at all these letters delivered to her by different families to her, do you even comprehend -?!"

"It is alright, Your Grace." Mai patted his mother's gloved hand with a calm that perturbed him to no end. "I am accustomed to His Lordship's methods of appreciation."

_Holy hell._

Luella beamed at her charge's decorum while he wanted to punch something viciously, reduce something to ash, dust and smoke.

He settled for gripping the teacup until the veins in his hand were almost invisible.

He needed a plan. Quick. Just so he could restore the mood she was in before, a mood that he could better deal with than _this _silence.

And then it struck him. A plot so excellent in its making that he almost smirked in grim satisfaction as he glanced at Mai talking with his mother as they made plans to visit different families and pay calls on the patronesses of Almack. He wondered how in hell his mother could not see through Mai's bland smile and weak answers.

He'd show her. He'd put that infernally bright smile back on her face.

"I am leaving for a business trip." He stood up so suddenly that he almost upset the contents of the table, an energy in his veins that made his brain race and he watched as the chattering women gawked at him. "I may not be able to be back for a few days. Good day."

Flinging his coat over his arm, he shoved in his chair with his foot and strode as quickly as possible from the room, leaving behind a nonplussed Luella and a wide-eyed Mai.

_Oh the things that he'd do for this woman…_

* * *

><p><em>Poorly done, Mai. Poorly done.<em>

This was the third time this week that he had stormed out of the dining room on her account; she felt so wrong inside, even as she smiled at the Duchess and answered all her excited queries at the proper moment but somehow she could not shake off the feeling that she had let her Uncle win.

She should have had the energy to smile; she should have been happy.

"…oh and get dressed, we'll go and visit Madoka at her house." She barely paid heed to the Duchess' words. "She has been so excited to meet you especially since she missed the Mortram's ball."

God, she felt miserable.

"Hmm…" She nodded unseeingly and headed in whatever direction faced her, unfortunately, the Duchess' hands stopped her.

"Mai." The Duchess turned her towards him, her lips thinned. "Tell me what is wrong."

She hesitated for a moment, fidgeting with her fingers as the Duchess' eyes scrutinized her – this was exactly how she had slipped everything to Naru, she did not want the Duchess to give her the same look as Naru had given her; as if she was a kicked _puppy._

_Or a deprived dog… for that matter._

However, the Duchess smiled at her tentatively. "He beat you. Your Uncle… did he not?"

Mai sighed in defeat; somehow the whole ducal family had to know her weakness.

"Do you have somewhere private to talk, Your Grace?"

The Duchess was already sailing towards the nearest vacant room…

* * *

><p>She finished recounting a fairly tamed version of the tale, her head bowed, her hands folded in her lap, trying hard not to look at the Duchess.<p>

"Do you know something, child?" Mai looked up, startled at the gentleness in the Duchess' voice. "You are _very_ brave."

_Brave?_

"I'm not." She shook her head violently. "I should have done something except of taking those whippings! I should have been better!"

"Hush."

Mai quietened, twisting the gloves in her clammy hands as the Duchess chose her words.

"My dear, sometimes we are not fully responsible for what happens in our lives." She sighed ruefully. "I could not stop Martin from dying, I could not stop Gene from leaving. I couldn't do anything and I blamed myself but later it was Noll who made me understand that sometimes fate is just trying to be a bastard."

She stifled the urge to gasp at the curse the otherwise punctilious Dowager muttered.

_Naru?_

"Naru? But… how – ?"

She smiled, gazing at nothingness. "You may never believe it but sometimes I have a sudden thought that Noll is more emotionally vulnerable than his twin. Does that make sense?"

It did…

"He is just more quiet about it. More repressed." Mai added quietly. "As if emotions may threaten him. He thinks he's a cynic but he's not; proof of the fact is that he would have married Lady Masako when the time was convenient. But he held out hope. I think he's merely putting up a facade to protect himself from God knows what."

Luella turned her head to look at her sharply.

"You seem to have a very accurate insight on my son."

Mai bit her tongue. She was forever saying the wrong things in front of the Duchess.

For a moment, the Duchess gazed at Mai cautiously as if analysing every word that she had said before and Mai resisted the urge to twitch in nervousness.

_God, let me pass the test. Please._

"Very well. That aside –" Luella perched herself on a high chair, looking at Mai down her nose. "- now tell me how much Noll has offered to pay you…"

_What the -?!_

* * *

><p>Moments later, she was sitting with the Duchess in her room, quaffing expensive red wine as they talked and laughed as the Duchess told her of Naru and the Duke's childhood. It had started raining right after breakfast which meant they could do nothing but sit at home; surprisingly the Dowager had suggested they adjourn the lessons and simply… <em>talk.<em>

_Surprise._

"And then…" The Duchess rocked slightly, she _had _imbibed a lot of wine after all. "…Gene…pfft…he pushed Noll into the river!"

Mai laughed loudly.

"It. Was. Hilarious!" The Duchess too joined in the raucous laughter and hoots from Mai. "You should have seen Noll…hahahaha…._spluttering!"_

The mere image made Mai want to roll on the floor with mirth. Naru dripping water, his customary scowl directed at his fun-loving twin.

"I have never_…_" Luella's body trembled with snickers. "…_never _laughed so much since Martin died."

_Oh…_

They both quietened as the laughter faded, reverberating dimly in the room.

Mai sighed sadly.

"I always wanted to have a family." She wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye. "I guess I missed a lot of fun."

To her surprise, the drunken Duchess leaned forward and patted her hand consolingly.

"I consider you family now." Her words bought anew fresh tears to Mai's brown eyes. "A replacement for Gene. A replacement I can doll up and dress and train - a daughter."

_Please don't say things like that..._

"Do you miss him?"

It was an inane question but Mai could think of nothing else to say.

"Yes." The Duchess nodded, turning her head to stare out of the rain plastered window. "But sometimes… I think… I think he's – _dead."_

Mai gasped.

"It's a terrible thought but – " Luella swallowed. "- I just _can't _help it."

Mai was about to say something comforting when Wendall opened the door, his grey moustache twitching in amusement as he bowed to them.

"Your Grace. Miss Taniyama." He straightened. "You have certain… guests… in the blue parlour."

The Dowager raised an eyebrow and shot a look at the window which was being pelted by raindrops. "Guests? In this weather?"

"Err… yes."

They both stood up and the Duchess rang for Fleur to come and fix their appearance, the French maid clucked in disapproval the Dowager's inebriated conduct but there was a laughter in her eyes.

"Come now, child." The Dowager gestured to her. "And pinch my elbow if I say something stupid. I fail to understand why men like to have their brains fogged up. No wonder they are confirmed sods."

They walked towards the blue parlour and Wendall brushed Mai's hand away as she tried to grasp the doorknob.

"Allow me, Miss Taniyama."

Mai straightened her shoulders and fixed on her customary smile, feeling definitely light-headed after telling the Duchess everything about the deal. It felt as if a weight had been lifted of her shoulders.

Though she hadn't told her about the visits at the library.

Mai shuddered at the Dowager's reaction if she ever came to know of the midnight rendezvous; even though it was far, _far _from that.

But suddenly, the door to the room was thrown open, nearly plastering Wendall to the wall as five exuberant children lunged towards her.

Her mind was wiped blank of all coherent thought. Her breath stuck in her throat, she headed inside as if walking in a dream.

Familiar faces assaulted her vision.

_Familiar children…_

"Belinda?" She gasped, trying to find something to hold onto so she could regain her sanity. "Irene?"

Her cousins tried to speak all at once, laughing, ribbons in their hair as they tugged at her skirt, begging for her attention and dragging her into the room simultaneously.

She tried to say something but her brain whirred, a dull ache in her heart at seeing her closest family, her eyes blurred with tears and she wanted to sink into the carpet.

_But how -?!_

"Oh my God." Mai put a hand to her heart, her head spinning. "Oh my God!"

And just when she thought she would die with astonishment, he appeared in her line of vision, right behind her cousins as he strode over to the fireplace and leaned against it, smirking in smug satisfaction.

Her eyes widened and she grasped the seat of the couch to steady herself.

_Had he done… all this – ?_

"I thought you might want to meet them." He drawled, his low voice sending shivers through her. "Surprise."

* * *

><p><em>'Did you see the sparks feel the hope? You are not alone<em>

_Cause someone's out there, sending out flares…'_

_-Flares/The Script._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_And cut! That is all for now, believe me I had this chapter written for a while now but it somehow got deleted *damn my brother* and I just lost heart to write it again. Also I was in travel since the past three days and could not write due to all the distractions. Enjoy the filler chapter! Do review and put in your valuable suggestions and comments :D_

_Cookies~_

_-borntoflyhigh-_


	8. The Warnings That Incite Us

**'And Then Came A Duke'**

_**In Which The Hero Is Cautioned, The Heroine Is Bent On Disaster And They Both Find Themselves Back In The Library…**_

**Disclaimer: **_I do NOT own GH – it is entirely the property of Fuyumi Ono – sensei. I also make no claim to the fictitious village of 'Spindle Cove' which belongs solely to the ingenious Tessa Dare. I suppose that covers it all…_

* * *

><p>"<em>I'm running from the very person I'm chasing, and this is how I know I'm in love." <em>

― _**Love Quotes For The Ages – Specifically Ages 18-81 **_by Jarod Kintz

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>I<strong>__f we were to tell you, Dear Readers, what we saw yesterday, you would surely question the credibility of our esteemed gossip sheet but it is the utmost truth. We swear upon all that we hold holy that what follows in the next lines is nothing but the gospel truth, never mind that it is quite difficult to imagine him__in such a setting…_

_We saw a certain handsome, calculating __**Lord D**__ – (whose full name shall remain unrevealed) walking out of Madame Reveilles' shop his hands full of packages as the rain pelted him and behind him were – gasp – five little children! Immediately after observing this little spectacle of domesticity we rushed inside the shop to question the renowned dressmaker but instead Madame R– refused to honour our questions with an appropriate response, her gossiping mouth tightly sealed. 'Tis truly shocking! The perfectly wicked, computing aristocrat with a bunch of children, a category he has sought to ardently avoid in the past. _

_We wonder what has wrought such a change in demeanour!_

_And we wager we know…_"– Snitch/ April 1816.

* * *

><p>"<em>And he bought all of us new dresses! The ones with lace and ribbon! Isn't that famous?"<em>

Ribbons. Lace. Yes. Of course.

"_The shop was… it was… beautiful! I wish you could have seen it, Cousin…"_

She wished that too.

"_We ate meat pies! Meat pies, Mai! I'm going to tell __**all **__my friends at school when I go back."_

Meat pies. Really? How nice.

Her perfunctory, unintelligible answers did not deter her little cousins from chattering in the least.

_What the…_

She was barely aware of the loud sounds throbbing in the backdrop; a gaggle of children screaming to get her attention, the crackling of the fire in the hearth as the rain drummed against the window panes.

"_Mai…?"_

She was dimly aware of the Duchess calling out her name anxiously, extending an arm as if to steady her faltering footsteps before she followed the line of her sight and saw what Mai was looking so intently at.

A certain light sparked in the Duchess's eyes.

_Why was he doing this?_

Mai stared at him utterly speechless; trying to untangle the threads of his personality – why was it so difficult to decipher him, so empathetic one moment and so cold, so impassive the next. What was it that made his person so torn at the ends and so decisive with whatever he did to her? He had called their _intimacy_ – she grimaced at the word – the other night nothing but a lapse in judgement caused by her roiling emotions and yet…

Yet he'd bought her tiny world and fit it against the walls of this mansion.

_Do you even recognize this man?_

Why would he do _that? _Why would he go to such lengths to secure something that had no reward for him in the consequences? Wasn't he the cold, calculating nobleman who woke up at noon and had no care for the broken hearts he left in his wake? Wasn't he the reserved schemer who had a way with diplomacy and subtle politics that could knock grown men down with its wit?

Wasn't he the villain of this particular chapter in her life?

Then why – Holy God, above – _why _was he so set on playing the hero?

His questioning gaze seemed to sear itself on her memory, the way his eyebrows arched as if trying to gauge how much surprised she had been at all _this. _He looked entirely indifferent to the chaos he had descended upon her thoughts as if what he had done was so common-place that it was entirely beneath anyone's notice.

He held her wild, befuddled gaze as if warning her not to make too much of this gesture.

How could he spring something of this magnitude on her and then expect her to hold her ground?!

Her head spun around like a globe on its axis and she watched the room waltz around her scattering thoughts. The eyes of the manipulating Duchess flitting between them like she was trying to unearth a physical layer of something between that wide space that separated him and her. She tried to smile at him from beneath all those assaulting thoughts, he was only open in his expression when she managed to disconcert his logic, dismantle the fortress of science and order he had built around him… but all she managed to do was give him one of those looks that one gave to a stranger who did an unexpected act of kindness.

But he wasn't a stranger.

_Or was he?_

With her head throbbing with the noises that reverberated in the parlour, her heart threatening to come clean through her chest when her blood thrummed against her nerves with the awareness of him, lazily leaning against the fireplace in all his aristocratic glory, all masculine beauty sculpted in perfection, she – for the very first time in her entire life – hit the ground cloaked in the darkness spreading beneath her eyelids.

And promptly fainted…

* * *

><p>Luella Anne Davis, the Tenth Duchess of Shibuya, had always been of the firm belief that a woman should at all times be equipped with a folding fan, no matter what situation she is placed in.<p>

It came in quite handy when one wished to hit their besotted sons in the forehead…

_**Thud!**_

Now… swooning was all right and good but did that girl possess no scheming bone in her body _at all_? _Why_ - there she had been, a damsel in distress, on the precipice of a golden opportunity to faint right into Noll's arms – but _no! _– she had to use such an effective technique just to collapse ten feet away from her frozen son.

Absolutely gauche – if you cared for her opinion.

"Really, Noll…" She snapped open the fan and aired herself, enjoying the taut, worried look that her son sought to conceal from her eyes. So protective, the young man. "Do stop _gawping, _dear. You caused the poor girl to faint."

This wary statement did not cause her son to move a muscle who was watching the servants run hither tither as they tried to rouse Mai; Luella had to hide the smile twitching her lips – Noll looked positively appalled – his eyes were narrowed as he tried to ascertain whether this particular surprise had caused her to pass out, his eyebrows raised.

Begrudgingly, Luella had to admit that fainting ten miles away had certain advantages.

Oliver looked as if ten years had been taken off his entire lifespan.

_Hah. Take that, son!_

"Wendall, please tell a footman to carry Miss Taniyama up to her chambers and revive her to her senses over there."

The butler bowed and Luella noticed his greying moustache quivering in amusement.

Turning to the children, she smiled serenely, discreetly cataloguing their personalities at the back of her mind.

"Dears?" She called out to the five girls who were observing the entire scene with an expression of horror mingled with thrill as if fainting was suddenly an adventure. "Would you come here and introduce yourself?"

The quintet collectively turned their heads to stare at her and gaped; the children might never have seen anything as fine as the place where they had been hastily whisked to by her chivalrous son (how she liked the sound of that) which was why they walked over to her, as if in a daze and proceeded to curtsy.

"I'm…" The eldest one appeared to be in some sort of struggle about her identity as she bobbed in a curtsy. "I'm… Lila!"

The girl in the line next to Lila snorted.

"Yer just tryin' to be fancy! Pooh!" She exclaimed, sticking out her tongue. "Yer Grace, her real name is Lucas!"

"Indeed." Oh this was vastly amusing – a girl with an unfortunately masculine name. "And who might you be?"

The girl puffed out as if disappointed that the Duchess would not remember such an important personage.

"I am Georgie." Luella noticed the way the eight year old struggled to conceal the Cockney accent. "And I like yer - _your_ house…"

Luella resisted the urge to narrow her eyes down on the youngling; this girl, _Georgie, _rather reminded her of herself when she was at that age.

"This is Janet." Georgie flicked a thumb towards the other girl in the line who had been silent throughout the whole exchange, instead standing with her head down. _Shy. _Luella noted. "That is Irene. She's six but she's the prettiest of us all and then there's Belinda – she's the ugly duckling."

Irene merely contented herself with nodding dumbfounded while Belinda struck her tongue out at Georgie, not even paying the slightest attention to Luella.

"Well – I think that you _all _are very pretty. I will see to it that you spend the rest of the night with your cousin. Or would you like to rest in separate chambers?"

The vote conflicted between the straightforward Georgie demanding a separate room while the others insisted on being with Mai – who had been efficiently removed from the room by Wendall, up to her own bedchamber. Noll was slumped in a chair, running a hand through his unruly hair in deep contemplation, not paying heed to her interviewing the little girls.

"Why is your son always frowning?" Georgie looked up at Luella, halting the conversation with an unseen authority. "When I asked him what he liked better, pink or red lace, he looked at me and scowled."

This time Luella gave in to a rather unladylike chortle, given her inebriated condition.

"It's his nature, I'm afraid." Asking men to choose between colours that all seemed to mix themselves into one hue in their internal minds was nothing but a waste of time. Bachelors especially which was why she was so intent on marriage. "I don't even know half the things he does half the time."

The girl nodded sagely, her red ringlets bobbing.

"He beat Papa." Georgie said confidentially, a note of triumph in her voice, the others trailing behind her as she sailed from the room to personally show them to their chambers. It had been a long time since she had had so much fun. "It was magnificent! Isn't that word nice? I learnt it from Lady Hara at the tavern."

Lady Hara – hmph – shallow, cruel woman who was no doubt, the village's little hag.

"A good addition to a ladies vocabulary." Luella stopped at the landing and turned to the little girls who were staring up at her as if she was the Queen herself and she was… _charmed. _"I can help you all learn more, if you desire."

The quintet smiled beatifically at her.

And by just a simple gesture, she was thrown back into remembrance.

_If her own daughter had been alive now…_

It took a few minutes for her to regain hold of her environment; her eyes stung with tears but she knew they would be blinked away in a few minutes if she chose to redirect her attention elsewhere.

So she smiled and as always it managed to hide everything.

"Fleur, please send down a message to Noll that we shall be having dinner together in my bedchamber." She spoke without turning to the Frenchwoman. "Meanwhile I'll see to it that these girls have settled."

The girls looked around the palace with ill-concealed admiration, mouths opening when they saw how a Duchess (Cor!) decided to accompany rustics like them to their rooms.

"Now, girls…" She snapped her fun shut firmly, tapping it against her open palm like a school ma'am. "The first rule to being a lady is having a modicum of self-respect and decisiveness. In about a few years you shall all be gently-bred ladies, making your way out into the world – so you must always, _always, _walk as if you own the very ground you shall walk. Self-confidence, not vanity if you understand what I mean…"

Even if the young ones had no idea what she meant by frighteningly big (_posh _if you asked Georgie) words like egotism, decisiveness, delicate refinement, they listened on positively enthralled.

And Luella Davis felt the breach in her own heart healing with each step of the rounding staircase they climbed.

* * *

><p>Apparently, <em>this <em>was how chivalrous acts were rewarded.

By fainting…of all ungodly things.

He took another sip of the cold wine, relishing in the taste as he pondered over the events of the unusual day; the task was easier said than done but then again; he _was _a Marquis, two steps down from the Regent himself and money could possibly achieve anything in the most limited of time.

Not to forget that it had felt savagely _wonderful _to pummel that useless man until he was sporting a bloody nose, a split lip and a ticket to prison. Wonderful but not satisfactory. Violence was not enough to actually make a difference in her life at the present and so he'd packed her entire family into the carriage on nothing but rash impulse and whisked them off to London, stationing the aunt into one of his townhouses, bringing the girls over at the Estate.

And pray – what had she done in consequence?

Fallen to the floor in astonishment…

Here he had been hoping for a smile.

_Really… that woman._

He shifted his attention to his suddenly reticent mother who had not only forked her way through the entire meal without a single word but had not even paid the slightest sort of notice to his decision of bringing her entire family to the manor. This had to be some sort of new record for his chattering mother. One that needed to be preserved somewhere for future references.

It was during this momentary period of quiet bliss when his Mother sat up straighter in her chair and set down the fork and knife in her hand with a reverberating clang.

The sound bespoke the firmness in her thoughts.

_Let the Inquisition begin…_

"It has recently come into my hearing that my son has resorted to infatuation." Clearly, his mother wasted no time getting straight to the point. "Finally, some might say."

"Nonsense."

Her little sigh of satisfaction at the denial clashed with him more than it should have.

"You will know me well enough to acknowledge that I do not believe in anything without evidence." She pushed a newspaper towards him, open at the scandal sheet that he abhorred. His eyes roamed over the headline and he was sorely tempted to bang his head against something in mild annoyance. "But The Snitch claims it was _you _who took the girls to a modiste. Why?"

This was turning from a family dinner to an official interrogation – just as he had feared.

_So much for quiet bliss._

"I do not care for scandal sheets as you know." He too set down his fork and attempted to rise from his chair. "So if you will excuse me – "

Emphasis on attempted.

"_Sit._"

He gracefully slid back into a chair he so wished to vacate.

"I could not bring them to the house in tattered clothing, could I?"

His mother actually snorted, inclining her head to the side in puzzlement.

"Funny. I have never thought that you bothered with propriety or a conscience… for that matter."

"Just because it has not been used to this date," He retorted coldly. " – does not indicate that it has ceased to exist."

His mother narrowed her blue eyes at him, analysing every one of his actions with her intent gaze before her expression softened and she leant towards him, patting his hand reassuringly.

_What - ?_

"I can understand." She was saying in a bizarrely sympathetic voice, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "But it will pass, Noll. One day you will look back on this infatuation and understand that it was just _that. _Infatuation."

He set down his fork as well, his full attention latched to his Mother's nonsensical words.

"I beg your pardon?"

She sighed again, morosely. "Whatever you feel is nothing but simple attraction – I know it feels different. _Permanent. _But there it is again, son."

Why his Mother had suddenly turned all sympathetic and… and _motherly_ – he had absolutely no idea.

"Mother, perhaps I should tell you that – "

"I don't need explanations, dear boy." She pursed her lips in a pathetic, sad smile. "When an aloof man such as yourself meets a vivacious woman like her there is _bound _to be a spark of attraction – "

He choked on the wine he had been appreciating a full minute earlier.

"I don't understand – "

"A peculiar dance follows you see," She rather sounded like a preacher in the middle of Mass. "A dance of seduction – a little game. You attract and you repel at the same time. Then when the chase grows old, the desire to repeat the cycle diminishes and – "

_Was she giving him… the talk?_

_Good Lord._

His voice was strained.

"Mother…"

"And _poof! _The desire wears off." She snapped her fingers in a pale imitation of smoke after the fire burns out. "All you are left is with regrets and sage advice from your mother who had been _constantly _telling you to give up on games so weaving into lust. Do you understand?"

"If you would tell me just _what – ?"_

"My heart weeps over your present state, believe me it does." She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. "You must understand how torn I am over deciding what it is to be; the wedding of one son or the infatuation of another."

"Perhaps if you would _tell _me – "

"But I shall choose what is good and permanent." There she went with that righteousness in her voice like that of a missionary. "_I _shall choose holy matrimony – "

He had had enough.

"Mother." His cold, flinty voice resonated in the room. "I have absolutely no idea and I emphasise – _no idea – _of what you refer to."

Her expression fell from the local vicar's to that of the imperial Duchess within the fraction of a second.

"Really?" She arched an eyebrow quizzically. "I refer to you and _Mai, _you imbecile._"_

Oh.

_Hell._

"What of it?" Nonchalance was his only weapon in the instance; pretending that he was scandalized by his Mother's baseless (if intuitive) accusations seemed the only way out of this rather nasty entanglement. "I think you are inebriated, Mother."

She studied him quietly for a moment. He focused intently on the meal before him.

The silence resembled a stretching chasm, draping them like a curtain before Luella's tentative voice shattered it.

"Noll. Leave."

His head jerked up to look at her in bewilderment.

"I mean it." She said, lips thinning into a frown. "She is besotted with you, the foolish girl."

He stared at her, frozen momentarily.

"If you stay here, you just encourage her meaningless hopes. After all – " She paused, gauging his reaction warily. "…we both know that _this _will never amount to anything."

This being what she called their infatuation.

"Oh really?"

The fire crackled menacingly in the grate.

"She is meant for your brother." Luella sighed, turning her head to the other side, gazing out of the rain beaten window like a martyr. "Your stay here will result in nothing but hurt for the poor girl."

A sudden coldness clamped over his veins.

For a moment he was seized with the desire to tell her exactly what he thought of Mai, when he did think about her (which was increasing in frequency with each passing day) just to soothe her feelings that his presence did not threaten the marital prospects of his brother at all.

It was just the other way round.

The silence had never been so deafening.

"What if Gene doesn't care for her?" He made a rhetorical statement after all, one meant to challenge not deliver some kind of truth but then again his mother did not care for layered, subtle words. "What if _he _hurts her?"

Luella's sage blue eyes caught his own and her mouth curled into a smile so hopeful that it threatened to knock him down.

"He wouldn't, Noll. I know he wouldn't."

Her blind trust in a person who had abandoned her for adventure made him clench his teeth in rage. Here he was; blindly following duty, responsibility, family and what had _that _amounted to? A mother who wouldn't trust him with a woman's heart?

A meaningless existence – wasn't that how he would describe himself if given the chance.

"Fine." Standing up, he looked down at his frail mother, dressed in jewels, holding a silver spoon in one hand yet so unhappy that no amount of riches could keep the unhappiness at bay. "I'll leave if that is what gives you peace."

A shadow crossed her face.

"It'll pass." She repeated, not looking up at him. "It'll pass, Noll."

_How he wished it would._

He gave her a bitter smile.

"I know."

And he left… never once looking back.

* * *

><p>"Do you not think that went a bit too <em>extremely, <em>Your Grace?" Fleur Devereaux had been employed in the Davis household for as long as she could unroll her memories but she had yet to see the Duchess perform at her finest.

Apparently, this dinner_ – _if one could call that cold, miserable meeting_ that_ – was her finest performance to date.

"Pshaw!" Duchess Luella rolled her eyes, delicately taking off her filigree earrings. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, does it not?"

Fleur paused for a moment, her fingers stopping from the task of uncoiling the Duchess's braid. The question had been buzzing in her mind since the evening as she had watched the Duchess lead her son into a merry dance throughout dinner.

The woman had unnerved the most unemotional man of her acquaintance which was quite large, considering the number of people she knew from street thugs to the nobility of the French society.

Though the question remained unspoken between any of them until she gave it voice.

"But what if there is no heart at all?"

* * *

><p>"He left."<p>

Being a maid for most of her life had taught Mai Taniyama a number of useful things, the lessons wearing on her hopes like rust but then again – she reasoned – there was bound to be a mess on the way to success, be it rust or flake. The most important rule however, had been to never, _ever _take liberties to talk back to aristos on matters concerning their private lives even if they issue invitations.

"Oh?" She knew the fact that this was unsteady ground that she walked upon, if she said something vehement or closer to her real emotions on the subject, the Duchess would take hint. Clever woman that she was. "Really?"

The look that the Dowager gave her could best be described as irritated.

"_Noll. _Oliver. Lord Davis left."

It was Mai's turn to shoot the Duchess an annoyed 'so-what?' look.

"Yes. So you said."

"And your feelings on the subject are?"

_This _was a rink of ice. Make an unnecessary, sharp moment and drown.

"None. Whatsoever." Her internal glee at having concealed her emotional turmoil was perhaps too great, regardless of the disappointment in her gut. "He is an adult after all. An adult with choices."

If the Dowager's eyebrows arched anymore they would surely fly off her head.

"You're being very quiet, girl." She pushed the red thread in the embroidery hoop, shooting her quizzing looks over her spectacles. "Such quietness makes for very dull conversation."

"Does it not?" Mai murmured back politely just like Luella had taught her to do in such sticky situations. "Dull conversation, indeed."

It seemed that Mai had reached the irritation limit of the woman because suddenly, the Dowager set down her embroidery hoop with a firmness that scared Mai. That was the Dowager Duchess – scaring the wits out of her with a gesture as innocuous as setting everyday things down on tables.

"Mai." Her voice was loud and annoyed in the extreme. "My son has left. And if I'm not wrong it has something to do with you!"

Uh-oh.

"I – I…" She flushed and pricked her finger on the needle, wildly shaking her hand to relieve the momentary pain, she looked at the Duchess pleadingly. "It isn't my fault!"

"I never said it was…" The Duchess grinned at her but it felt more like a smug baring of teeth. "If you would please tell me what is going on, I could perhaps – "

And just like that, Mai felt the hard-earned control fly out through the window as the passion resurfaced.

"He! _Your son! _Is a cad!" She stood up, flinging the embroidery hoop on the sofa. "What kind of aristocrat is he, anyway?! First he listens to me ramble and never once complains! Then he becomes the epitome of _consideration_ as I tell him every embarrassing, _weak _detail of my life"!

"My dear, I'm quite sure – "

But she was on a roll.

_How. Dare. He. Leave?!_

"Then – then he assures me that I will never, _never _be a lady and what does he do next?! Brings my family, my _poor _family and installs them in this castle! Oh and then he decides to _leave?! _Just so I can't thank him! Taking the best moments for himself that smug bastar – "

"That is enough, child." The Duchess picked up her sewing box and hastily thrust the embroidery hoop in it, suddenly all pleasantness. "I have inferred more than suitable to come to certain conclusions that – "

A knock at the door interrupted the Dowager's gleeful reply.

"Your Grace, Miss Taniyama." Wendall bowed deep, holding a salver of calling cards. "Callers await you."

"Ah," Luella put the lid on her sewing box and Mai followed suit, picking up her piece of embroidery on which she had managed to sew a rather dangerous looking dagger. "And who might they be?"

Rather unconsciously…

"Lady Masako. Lady Ayako. Lady Madoka."

Drat. Drat. Drat.

The blood drained from Mai's face and she unceremoniously slumped in the chair.

_They were here…_

They were here to call out her deceit.

Her new identity was haunted by memories from her past; first the scars, now the very people who had watched her dirty her hans on a pair of dishes, who had watched her dressed in shabby cloths, carrying heavy cauldrons back and forth in taverns...

Masako swept in first – a delicate cloud of purple regally dyed to suit her complexion perfectly. Ayako stomped in next as if she had been dragged to the mansion quiet against her will, a hideous dress of black crepe covered her form and in the end came Madoka herself, up to the latest fashions, with a high necked gown of burgundy on her form. They curtsied to Luella with the exception of Madoka who took the chair next to the Duchess in record time and began whispering eagerly. The other two ladies shot Mai a dark look.

_Accountability – here I come._

"So Mai," Ayako spoke up first, her red hair shining like flames. Mai cowered in the sofa a bit. "We hear that you have decided to wed _Eugene."_

She had heard that dangerously soft voice before – right before Ayako began smacking Monk in the head with her reticule.

Oh. No.

"Erm… yes - ?"

Masako spoke from above a gracefully poised tea-cup. "And yet last night we saw _Oliver _with you…hmm…"

What direction was this conversation actually taking?

And why was _Masako _so concerned for Oliver _dearest_?

She bared her teeth in a smile and felt some of Luella's lessons seeping back into her bones.

_Hold your own in a conversation._

"Hmm…" She shrugged noncommittally, stirring tea as if deep in thought. "His Lordship thought it prudent. What can I say next to _that?_"

A silence descended on the room; even Madoka stopped her rapid flinging of whispers with the Dowager and turned to look at Mai, musing.

"Good Heavens, Luella." She turned to her long-time friend. "You've given her one of your lessons!"

Ayako slumped in the sofa as if all the wind had been knocked out of her – and even then, Mai thought grumpily – she looked every bit of the Countess.

"Thank God!" Ayako groaned, rubbing her eyes. "I was in no mood to conduct an interrogation anyways…"

Masako sipped her tea, unfazed by the circumstances.

"Indeed it does spare us much time."

Mai looked at them one by one as the Duchess chuckled in amusement.

"Are you not going to insult me?" She asked, enunciating each word slowly. "Something about my parentage and birth and manners?"

Ayako and Masako had the grace to look offended.

"Insult, dear me, no!" Madoka aired herself with her fan. "We just came here to check on your _polish. _You are one of the ladies from Spindle Cove, are you not? We would be devastated if something bad happened to you…"

_They would be – devastated?_

"We are something of a league, you see." Masako poured herself another cup of tea. "The ladies of Spindle Cove. We help each other. It is that simple."

"But I'm not a lady."

The Dowager tutted in exasperation.

"Wrong answer." Ayako raised an eyebrow, scratching at the itchy crepe. "Never demean yourself, Mai. It gives game to the vultures."

"And the old hounds."

There was something so sweet about the gesture that Mai found herself smiling widely at the trio; perhaps she was not nobly-born but right at that moment… she was accepted.

Even if she had been nothing but a maid raised in the countryside all her life...

"Well, sentimentalities aside." Madoka swat her hand in the air as if dispelling any maudlin sentiment. "We are here to take you both shopping for the soiree at Lady Tremayne's mansion tonight. Let's not waste any more time."

And with just that, they all stood up, leaving Mai sitting on the sofa – her thoughts in a puddle.

There was acceptance.

And then there were a thousand pounds.

God knew why she ran after the former…

* * *

><p>"Think about it, will you?" The carriage rattled as it travelled to Grosvenor square where Madam Reveilles' shop was located. Even though Mai had about a dozen gowns, the Duchess insisted that she wanted to purchase a new, dazzling one for her. Perhaps only God could comprehend the minds of these ladies. "If you take what Noll has offered, you gain a thousand pounds which you will have to make last a lifetime."<p>

The Duchess had taken out the topic from an innocent conversation about fashion plates and had shifted it to _her _story which had made all the woman laugh and Madoka declare that it was absolutely 'romantic'.

Although what was so _romantic _about being so vulnerable to one person, Mai had yet to understand.

"But," The Dowager raised one finger. "If you take _my _deal, you gain a thousand pound as a marriage settlement after every six months."

Perhaps not even God could understand what ran in those heads decorated with fresh, delicate bonnets.

Mai stared at the old woman.

It did not take a mathematician to calculate _that _much wealth.

"_Exactly." _She nodded in satisfaction. "Think about the things you can give your cousins, the things you can achieve for the poor and needy if you marry my son! Think!"

Another advantage of being a maid was that one recognized it when one was being bribed.

This was one of those moments.

"Hmph." Ayako chuckled in amusement. "Though I can't see what she's seen in Noll to like _him."_

Masako straightened at that. "That I wonder upon too."

Mai found her eyes flitting between the two woman.

"After all," Madoka tapped her chin thoughtfully. "He's considerably grumpy, as silent as a mime artist and scowls at everything, no matter how brilliant that brain of his might be."

Mai raised an eyebrow.

"He's positively undesirable when it comes down to that. All icy perfection. Marble, if you get my meaning. I wonder if he has a heart or even a warm vein."

Was it just her or did these women not know him at all even after existing in the closest circle of his acquaintances?

"He has absolutely no soft bone in his body, to be sure!" The Duchess joined in. "Add no conscience to the list of his shortcomings."

_Now __**that **__was just plain cruel._

"I don't think that one ought to possess a soft bone in their body to do a good deed." She blurted out, belatedly realizing that she had defended the man in her short words. "After all - I - I think that what one needs is a reason to do it."

The quartet stared at her, taken aback.

She derived strength from the silence. "Everybody does a good deed for a reason. Either to please themselves or God. Or to redeem for something they regret doing. Never for free."

The silence continued. The stares levelled at her did not waver.

"He is no saint." She bit her lip, folding her clammy hands in her lap. "So I don't think we should judge him on that, should we?"

They positively gaped at her for a good many minutes before Masako snapped out of the stupor cast by her words.

"I suggest ruffles for her gown tonight, something in blue, Duchess." The topic was discarded as quickly as it came and Mai found herself watching the ladies shoot each other discreet, meaningful glances. "What do you say?"

The Dowager looked as if she was seeing Mai for the very first time in her life.

"Of course, Masako. Blue. Ruffles."

She did not care that perhaps she was the one who had laid her thoughts out for them to trample upon, that she cared for Naru, truly did, regardless of his bringing the cousins in. That perhaps, there was more to him than he cared to share.

Mai Taniyama knew it was there, simmering below the ice, peeping from the cracks in his walls every now and then.

She intended to bring it out, expose it to its full potential.

After all - she never lost a wager.

_Ever._

* * *

><p>Libraries, Oliver mused as he quietly shut the oak door, were not the most suitable locations for a rendezvous.<p>

But then again, this wasn't _exactly _a rendezvous. Never mind how much it felt like one.

"You're late."

His head turned sharply to the side to see who had called him out on his punctuality but it was later, when his eyes adjusted to the darkness when he saw that it was Mai.

Perched on a chair, her legs crossed beneath her as she studied _Accounting with Acumen _intently. She raised her eyes to meet his and he saw the mischief that danced there.

_Lord._

"You won't know how difficult it is to escape from a room full of children." She grinned at him. "_Thrice! _Thrice - I was about to escape when one of my cousins would wake up and ask me where I was going. I swear I have never visited the bathroom more in a whole day than I had to tonight."

It was hard not to smirk at that. Hanging his coat on the rack, he entered the dimly lit room save for one lantern sitting on the desk next to her.

"Why did you not light a fire?"

"Smoke." She turned a page, absentmindedly. "You don't want the servants suspicious, do you?"

His mouth tilted at the edges; to think that _he _had been the one to stop this from happening and he had been the one to return - and she had accepted his retreat without a comment. Other women would have crowed their victory for over a fortnight.

Other men would have taken their mother's ominous warnings and left.

Why he had come back to the manor tonight, against all odds - he had no damned idea. God help him.

He had a feeling God wouldn't.

"We went shopping today." She wrote something with a pencil in a margin. "With Ayako, Madoka and Masako."

He coughed.

_Madoka._

There went his hopes of divine succour.

"They told me some very_ interesting_ things about your childhood." In excitement, Mai set the book aside and turned to him, bouncing like a child in her seat. "Tell me. Did you and your brother really set fire to the curtains of that room you both didn't like when you were thirteen?"

He resisted the urge to groan.

"_No._" Firmly, he settled for an inhale. "I did not do anything nefarious. It was all my brother scheme."

His denial made her frown in disappointment before it again flared into impishness.

"But you did stand back and watch the curtains flare, didn't you?!"

He coughed and watched as Mai traced every moment of his eagerly, anticipating an answer.

"Yes."

He had to remind Lin to keep his beloved Viscountess on a tighter leash so she did not keep tattling to people about childhood _accidents._

"And Masako told me about the time when you all used to play princess and dragons." She clapped in mirth, rocking in her seat. "You never did tell me that Masako was a childhood friend! Imagine my shock!"

_What was this woman? Twenty-three or two?_

He looked to the ceiling.

_That game was the bane of his existence._

"It was _princes _and dragons. Royalty of the masculine variety." He amended, silently wrangling Masako in his imagination. "And _they _played. I had no participation in that game. It was usually my brother brandishing his sword left and right at the dragon."

"But - " Mai looked genuinely upset at his loss of participation in such a stupid game. "Who played dragon then?"

"Masako."

She stared at him for a moment, all incredulity before burst out laughing, tumbling off the chair as she giggled. "I - I thought that was _you!"_

He allowed a smirk to surface. The idiotic things they had done. Really.

"What about you and Yasu?" He took the reminiscent opportunity and turned it to his favour. "What history do you _both _share?"

She coloured and looked flabbergasted.

"It's really long and… and _convoluted_." Mai coughed, sitting back on the chair, crossing her bare legs. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had to tell his mother to buy her more robes. "I don't think you'd like to hear it."

He sincerely doubted that.

"We were friends. That is… I can't really tell you, see." She was wringing her hands in her lap. "I - it's honestly very silly!"

"I'll still like to hear what it was all about." He leaned back in the chair and sipped the cup of tea she had thoughtfully (and presumptuously) placed on his desk. "It sounds very _intriguing._"

He amused himself in her internal conflict as she avoided his eyes, visibly weighing the pros and cons of telling him all.

"Would you look at the time!" She exclaimed all of a sudden, skipping off the chair, tucking the heavy book under her arm. "I should really be going! Aha, see you tomorrow!"

He stood up too. "Mai? Come back here."

"I'll tell you everything later! Good night!"

And before he could stop her from putting such an abrupt end to the conversation, she had fled the library, in nothing but a blur of flying brown hair and flapping, translucent nightgowns.

For a moment he stood staring at the doorway, before he slipped into the chair, chin in hand, mulling over the little pieces of information she had given him; what was her relationship with that bespectacled devil? Why did she seek to hide it from him?

_Had they been lovers?_

The thought was nauseating and made him want to lash out at the nearest object.

He got up from the chair to retire to his own bedchamber but the agitation would not let him think of anything else.

That was when something struck him.

He wanted answers, did he not.

He would get them.

* * *

><p>Perhaps dashing out in the rainy night would not constitute one of his finer moments...<p>

He lifted the knocker again, bringing it down with a force that shattered the silence of the night air.

He wanted answers and he would get them.

_Now._

"What the devil - I - my lord?" A sleepy eyed butler with a candle in one hand gaped down at his rain beaten image. "Lord Davis, whatever in the name of - at two in the morning - is everything..."

Oliver stepped inside the threshold entirely uninvited but then again, he was a Marquis - the thought made him smirk - he could get whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

"Hutchins, if you would summon your master." Oliver handed him his drenched coat. "Tell him it is urgent."

The butler seemed fixed in the entrance.

"Hutchins?" He called out again which jerked the man to action. "Your master, if you would."

"Yes, my lord. Of course my lord. This way, my lord."

This idea was turning out to be marvelously entertaining; for somebody who had adhered to society's rules for all his life, all this rule breaking was vastly amusing. He resisted the urge to chuckle when he thought of the reaction to his rather grand entrance.

Seating himself on the sofa in the guest room, Oliver Davis mentally checked the questionnaire that he had prepared before riding out in the rainy night to the house. Curiosity nagged at the back of his mind, along with a desire to kill _him _ if it turned out that he had pressurized Mai in doing anything without her consent.

He looked up when footsteps sounded in the corridor.

"Why can I _not _enjoy a moment of peace with my wife at night without bloody interruption?"

The man himself strode into room, an expression of extreme annoyance laced his features, aforementioned wife following in his wake before they both saw him, lounging on the couch.

"Oliver?" The man looked properly taken aback. "What the hell, man?!"

His wife looked at both of the men in ill-concealed astonishment.

Oliver did not care.

"I have a question for you, Yasu." He looked up with an indolent stare at his long-time friend, stretching each word out with excruciating clarity. "I hope that you answer, truthfully."

"I have often found that when people knock on my door at late night, I should best send them on their way." Yasu shot a meaningful look to his wife who flushed and pursed her lips. "Because they bring nothing but trouble."

He rolled his eyes.

Steepling his fingers, he leaned forward.

"Explain your relationship to Mai." He drawled out, ever the lazy aristocrat. "Or I shall beat the truth out of your very life."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_You all can kill me for updating so late and I would not hold you in the wrong at all! I know I'm the worst kind of author but there it is. Please forgive me for such a time lapse and accept my appreciation of the fact that you all are very loyal readers and I love everyone of you. All the FF writers, all the guests, all those who favourite and follow. Just remember to review! I'll be looking forward to read your comments and suggestions for the story :) :) _

_Until next time which will be sometime later next week!_

_Review for cookies~_

**-borntoflyhigh-**


	9. The Answers That Confound Us

'**And Then Came A Duke'**

_**In Which The Hero Wants Answers, The Heroine Finally Acts And They Witness The Chaos...  
><strong>_

**Disclaimer: **_No owning Ghost Hunt folks!_

* * *

><p>"<em>Every time he thought he knew everything about her, had unwillingly memorized every last detail, something inside her flickered and changed, and he felt himself falling anew."<em>

―Michael Stirling from _**When He Was Wicked **_by Julia Quinn.

* * *

><p><em>Oliver,<em>

_I regret nothing._

**- From the Duke of Shibuya, Eugene Davis to his brother Lord Oliver Davis upon arrival in France. Delivered.**

* * *

><p>"<em>Explain your relationship to Mai." He drawled out, ever the lazy aristocrat. "Or I shall beat the truth out of your very life."<em>

* * *

><p>For a man who had used his silence and nonchalance almost like a weapon, the violence that unfolded slowly inside him was a novel concept, one that highly entertained his irrational side and of course, conveniently cut off all connections to a conscience.<p>

Rather - he searched for a word - _satisfying. _

Yasu paled.

"I should probably list all the ways I'm going to rectify this situation," He continued with the same cultivated indifference. " - if it even hints of you forcing Mai to do _anything_ -" He inclined his head to the side, contemplating.

"Davis - wait, listen to me - "

He cut off Yasu's word with a swift glare.

"Perhaps mutilating you wouldn't quite solve the problem…" Cracking his knuckles as subtly as possible, he observed one of those few people he could claim as friends. "..._murder _would be more effective in the long-run."

He had expected a variety of reactions from the both of them. In a perfect world, Yasu would have slumped in the chair to his right and would have been rubbing his face as if to physically erase his memories, afraid of him to death. Masako would gasp, listen to him as he pointed out Yasu's indiscretions, all those secret _affaires _and then would have swooned, perfectly landing on the settee next to her.

Unfortunately, the world was a vast space of imperfections.

They both burst out laughing.

He stared.

He watched the bespectacled viscount laugh all the while gazing at his wife in open adoration as she, _his childhood friend_, the girl he'd been betrothed to for such a long time; so quiet and dignified - _giggled, _moving into Yasu's embrace with ease, chuckling into his robe.

Giggled.

_Heaven forbid._

He stiffened noting the open intimacy between the two individuals; it was different from what he thought of an emotion as sinister and absurd as love - neither of them seemed to be _mooning _for each other, or acting in any odd fashion, rather, there was this companionship in their gestures as if they had known each other since forever.

It was for lack of a better word - surprising.

Their incessant amusement at his expense however reminded him of his annoyance.

"I think…" Masako fought to speak against another chuckle, reaching up to kiss Yasu's cheek. "... I suppose I -" Perhaps there had been something wrong with his methods of courting her, she had never laughed with such abandon next to him.

His pride, or some such part of him, acutely probed his irritation.

Until it flared.

"I know…" Yasu's voice shook in helpless laughter. "He came _here - _all the way for… _hell."_

He raised an eyebrow.

Slowly, the laughter ebbed away and was reduced to occasional chuckles from then - it was at that moment when Masako recovered her reserve, stood up and positioned Yasu's spectacles back into place. "I suppose I'll ring for wine."

"Masako," He began quietly, looking up into her face. " - I think you should be here when we have this conversation…"

She waved a hand in the air, carelessly cutting off his statement and that was when he saw the mirth in her eyes. "I know everything, Noll."

His second thought was how she had started using that long-abandoned nickname as a gesture of their previous friendship which surprised him because it wasn't his first thought when it should have been.

His first thought - or rather first reaction - was immense relief; if Masako knew everything then it indicated that Yasu hadn't done anything that would have hurt Mai.

It was as if somebody had taken the tension out of his muscles. His body relaxed quite involuntarily until his thought process came back to its immaculate functioning, the immediate relief was not something he was accustomed to and when it did come, he wished it hadn't.

Because logically, he shouldn't care at all.

"Davis - Noll…" Yasu began, searching for words. "I don't know why Mai never told you about our compromise…"

"Compromise?" Even to him, his tone sounded extremely covetous. "What sort of compromise?"

Masako snorted.

He arched an eyebrow at her.

"Though I suppose I do know why she never told you." Yasu replied thoughtfully. "I remember exacting a promise of confidentiality from her."

The words - he could not understand why - sounded suspicious to him.

"What sort of - "

Yasu raised up a hand to silence him and incredulously, Oliver watched the flirtatious devil turn into the dominant aristocrat, changing personalities with the ease of a chameleon.

"If you're going to go dominant on me _in my house_, Davis,I'll never be able to complete this story."

"Go on."

"I think we can agree that I didn't exactly have an ideal childhood." Masako touched Yasu's shoulder lightly and he turned towards her with a slight smile. "It's alright M, I think he has a right to know."

Oliver assessed Yasu with narrowed eyes; his childhood had been nothing less than a nightmare that was better left off in the past but what truly fascinated him was how Yasu seemed to have spoken of it all to Masako, even _he_, the man who'd saved Yasu from self-destruction, a task he had been hell-bent on once upon a time, hadn't been told what exactly Yasu had gone through.

A part of him was grateful for Yasu's secrecy.

All Oliver remembered from those memories was his observance of the bespectacled boy who had been their neighbour, constantly watching him, Gene and Masako from the window.

One day he'd gone over to their estate with Luella and Martin and that was when he had met Yasu.

"Father became obsessed with perfection after Mother died." He noted how the colour drained from Yasu's face a bit as he spoke. "I was not exactly the son he wanted, far-sighted and dumb." He scoffed cynically. "His methods of punishing me were a bit…"

Oliver wished the sickening conversation hadn't come up at all.

"Let's just assume they were extreme." Masako's grip tightened on Yasu's hand and Oliver was left with the sensation that Yasu was underrating the whole story but he didn't point that out. Some things were better left in the dark. "You don't know how ecstatic I was when Martin took me under his wing, Father stopped the punishments. He said I'd made him proud, befriended a Duke in such a young age and then there was the Duchess, Luella never pitied me. She treated me like a person. Not a kicked dog of some kind."

The words were filled with a bitterness unlike Yasu.

He recalled how Luella had always treated Yasu like another normal person, pretending that she couldn't remember his name, being all '_that flirt, what's his name?' _Oliver had known that Yasu was treated abhorrently by his aristocratic father but probably never really realized the extent of it.

He did now.

"All the memories took a toll on me. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't abide the dark alone - it was like a prison of my own making and you know what happened next."

He did. They'd gone to Eton where Yasu had attracted friends to himself like a magnet, always getting into scrapes, forcefully creating ruckus but never getting expelled, he had been too smart for that, too clever. Then came Oxford and that was when Yasu's deviltry had been at its summit, drinking, gambling, being with women (though never innocents, Oliver had often observed) and generally reeking of excessiveness. It was during this time when Oliver had put his foot down on Gene and Yasu; he'd taken the wine away, forcefully kept them away from debauchery but it was never enough. The two of them always did everything against the rules.

And he'd perfected himself, put to good all those expectations people had of him, made his character the complete opposite of Eugene's just like everyone had dictated it would become. He just hadn't let anyone down.

"Then Lin, our _righteous_ guardian took me off to Spindle Cove for respite and installed me in that miserable hovel away from all civilization."

"You mean all _parties."_

"Same thing." He shrugged. "I was fed up with the insomnia, usually I immersed myself in cheap ale until I met Mai. In the tavern and she told me I needed tea. I think I must have stared at her like she was mad."

Oliver shot a swift glance at Masako, to see if she looked jealous of the fond way that Yasu spoke of Mai, but instead he found that she was smiling, as if they were revealing a personal joke.

"Then, I met her and we made a pact." Yasu leaned back in the chair. "I'd give her money and she would come to the _hovel _every night, make me tea, anything she thought would rid me off this problem and stay until dawn. A therapy of sorts."

Masako coughed delicately and Yasu gave her an impatient glance.

"I'm getting to that part, darling." He turned back to face the fire. "Mai was a relief. I rather thought she'd be the woman I would love but she was not equal to me…"

Oliver felt a little sting at that, what did he mean by _not his equal, _Mai probably had more life and light than him in her little finger.

"Not like _that." _Yasu amended hastily. "But she was so _nice _and it was just so easy to shock her that she felt more like a mother than a love interest. Don't look like that, Noll. It was perfectly innocent."

It irked him that the thought of _her_ with Yasu in any sense of the word seemed to make him amenable to the idea of breaking every bone in Yasu's hands.

_Or stamping on them until they turned to dust._

"It better be." He found himself murmuring. "If I ever find out. Ever…"

"When women come to me, Davis." Yasu interrupted as he leaned forward, staring at him intently. "They come willingly enough -"

Masako interrupted with another directed cough.

"I'm _getting _to that part, darling, believe me I am."

She looked away with a huff. "You won't reveal that even if you're dying."

"He doesn't need to know _that."_

"What - ?"

"Nothing to interest _you, _Davis."

"Noll." Masako turned decisively to face him. "Yasu's reputation is a fake."

It took him a good second to process the implications of her words.

_Fake._

"Excuse me - " He began but Masako cut off his words with another irritated shaking off her head.

"All that debauchery he's represented - it's a ruse." She spoke fast now. "He's never been with another woman except me!"

Oliver would never admit it but he was truly dumbfounded.

Shocked.

"_What?" _He was acutely aware of the rising tenor of his voice but at this point he didn't care - he could always blame tiredness for it all in the morning. "That can't be possible, I saw him and Gene _myself -"_

"Just shows the weakness in your observance skills." Masako raised her chin haughtily. "My husband has never been with another woman except me."

"In _that _sense?" Inane as the question sounded, he felt compelled to defend her accusation on his observation prowess.

"In every sense." She huffed indignantly. "Who I am talking to? Schoolboys?"

He turned away with a snort. "Forgive me if I can't absorb the fact that your husband hasn't ever - "

"Can we please…" Yasu looked visibly ill. "... _please _not discuss my…"

"Hmph." Masako whirred her head to glare at Oliver. "It was much needed to convince your _friends _that you weren't being unfaithful to me!"

"I would never be - " A look of horror dawned on Yasu's face as he jerked back to stare at Noll. "Wait. _What?"_

"You were being too damned friendly with Mai." He shrugged, watching the scowl deepening on Yasu's face. "What else was I supposed to think?"

"You bastard." Yasu growled but then Oliver watched it return back to that faked pleasantness, underlined by the sneer that chilled him more than any growling whatsoever. "I'm flattered by your trust in my skill but really Davis.."

"I don't want to hear anything about your skill."

"Well, you're already in for it. See. There was this one time when I -"

"If I have to hear one more word about your _exploits - "_

"Perhaps I wasn't clear, Lord Davis. My husband has had no exploits, _ever!_"

He did not return home until dawn.

* * *

><p><em>Eugene,<em>

_Of course you don't. You've always left all the regretting for others to do, haven't you?_

**From Lord Davis to his brother, Eugene Davis. Torn merely minutes after writing. Undelivered.**

* * *

><p>One thing that Mai Taniyama had no control against was sleep.<p>

The oblivion that came with laying her head down on a pillow, even as rough hewn as her pillow back home, the void of nothingness was a welcome relief from her responsibilities at home.

But tonight - or rather, she noted looking out of the window - _today, _she had to come up with a story about her past. And fast.

Which was why she was forcibly staring at the canopy, trying to struggle to contain the yawns that seized her whenever her eyes strayed from the intricate designs on it. It was in these lonely moments when she thought of their latest meeting at the library; she truly hadn't expected him to return, she'd thought he was really gone but when the door opened and he stepped in, holding a rain pelted coat in hand she had known that all along this was why she had come in the first place.

She had known he would come. All along.

The fact that he had stood there, flesh and blood, had just sent her heart into a flurry.

She'd seen the shadows flickering along those angular cheekbones that women would do anything short of murder - no, she amended - even _murder _to have, hard, blue eyes almost crystalline in the light, shadowed by long lashes. If they had been sent into someone else's skull they would probably have looked too feminine.

But on him, they looked dangerous. He could cut someone to ribbons with them and they would probably stand mesmerized.

She growled into her pillow in frustration.

Really, now.

She needed to think about a story about her past that would pacify him into believing but whatever she thought of had one or other loophole in it - once she'd been moved to accepting that she had been Yasu's lover but then - she tossed - minding Belinda who was snoring next to her - she didn't want him thinking that she could sell herself for money.

She wanted him to think she was strong and that everything she was had been through dragging cauldrons back and forth, standing in the sweltering heat over saucepans, polishing tea-cups _not_ because she'd been intimate with an aristocrat.

It was at that time when she heard the hooves of a horse faintly beating against the graveled path.

Her ears strained to hear the unusual sound, lifting herself on her elbow, she stared at the clock on the mantelpiece, mouth tilting into a frown.

Four o'clock.

Whoever was riding towards the manor during such an ungodly hour?

The sound grew louder and then it stopped altogether.

Mystified, Mai moved from the bed, minding her four cousins - Georgie wanted her own room, of course - she would have lit a candle but a few orange rays from the sky were enough illumination. Walking over to the window, she observed a black horse round up silently against the driving path up the gate as the rider slid down fluidly from its back.

A burglar?

Not quite, burglars didn't possess that _posture _and that arrogant way that a man carried himself. The rider, who was also dressed in black (dash it all!) led the horse to the stables, a gloved hand stroking along the horse's muzzle with ease. Then the rider turned towards the window of her room, his gaze lingering there for longer than appropriate and she gasped.

_Naru?!_

Hastily, Mai put on one of those billowing white robes that lay spread on a settee, slipping her feet into one of the sturdy riding shoes she took the candle from the bedstead and walked out of the room, her feet gently clicking against the stairs until she reached the carpeted foyer. Taking care that the heaving of the oak door did not resound in the room, Mai shut it behind her, wincing against a blast of cold breeze.

That was before Naru spotted her and quickly started to stride in her direction.

She smiled at him, albeit a little suspiciously. His way of greeting her was by yanking her elbow hard until she stood flush against him.

"Ow!" She wrestled against his hand at her elbow. All in vain. "That hurts, Naru!"

"I hope it does." He snarled and for the first time Mai got a clear look at his face. "What do you think you're _doing_ out here? _At this time?_"

He finally let go and she stumbled a bit before her balance was regained; rubbing her elbow, she looked up at him with a frown on her face. His eyes positively blazed with ill-concealed anger and his lips were curled into such a ferocious scowl that she feared it would cut her if she even moved.

"Well!" She fairly shouted at him, stomping her feet and noting rather belatedly how the puddle from the rain came to splash up at her neat robes. "What are _you _doing out here?! And you're going to catch a cold if you stand there drenched, Naru! Have some care, will you?"

"Why don't you take your own advice?" He asked, taking in the white robe and her booted feet, his posture challenging her.

"You need somebody to question you, you narcissistic, high-handed man." Mai crossed her arms defiantly, tipping her chin upwards as she stood on her tiptoes trying to get equal with him in height. She failed. "You've been obeyed and bowed to for much too long, Lord Davis!"

He looked at her in a defeated, helpless sort of way; his shoulders were slumped in their stance, his form drenched in the rain that had stopped in the wee hours of the morning and his brilliant eyes were ringed with exhaustion.

For the first time perhaps, Naru looked human. Imperfect.

He looked magnificent; standing there in all his disheveled glory - she could feel a thin thread of desire unfurling inside her, fingers itching to feel the soft strands of his hair under her callused hands, recalling a buried memory of that night when she had been there with the considerate side of him.

Hurriedly, she took of the robe around her shoulders and handed it to him.

He stared at the garment in her hands. His throat worked but it seemed as if he had been rendered mute.

"Take it, Naru." She thrust it in his hands. "You're going to catch your death in that coat, here let me help you."

Perhaps with another person, she would have felt a glimmer of reserve, standing in the evenly paved road that led right up to the mansion, surrounded by tall, intimidating trees but there, with Naru, she didn't even care.

"No."

"But - ?!"

"I said take it, Mai."

"Fine!" Mai pursed her lips, shrugging back into the robe. "But then take off that coat, it's going to make you ill."

But since he probably looked transfixed with something in her appearance, Mai took it upon her head to take him out of that death trap of a coat.

"There." She straightened his necktie, smoothing the damp shirt so that it hid the untidy creases of his travel. "Isn't that better?"

He closed his eyes for a moment as if making a small prayer, then he opened them, lips parting as if he was on the verge of saying something to her but then the most astonishing thing happened. He closed his mouth and then did the most impossible thing of all.

Smiled at her in a resigned sort of way. Granted it wasn't a full-blown smile but it was that secretive titling of one side of his mouth.

_Smiled! At her!_

"You're mad." He told her but she felt rather giddy, still reeling from that smile. "You're insane."

"Well, that's just pot calling the kettle black!" She turned to him over her shoulder as they walked up to the house. "Wherever had you gone off to?"

"Yasu's house." She paused in her stride, whirring around to face him. "I had questions."

He'd gone off to…

Did he know - ?

And what sort of questions were they that couldn't wait until the light of the morning?

Her mouth worked around them but no words came out.

"I know everything." He told her flatly. "Yasu told me all about what you did with him…"

She did not regret all that she had done for Yasu but then she remembered how both of them had abandoned her in the mail-coach when all she was trying to do was preserve their reputations during that fake elopement. It was not exactly a warm memory.

"Come to the kitchen." Mai ignored that line of topic, silently thankful that this particular problem was solved. "I'll make you some tea."

They remained quiet for some time, slipping inside the house, carefully rounding down the stairs until they reached the kitchens. That was when he put his hand on her arm and turned her to him.

"You could have told me, Mai."

* * *

><p>He looked into her eyes; trying to discern the truth from amongst them but then he stared at them, conveniently forgetting all reason.<p>

"You could have told me."

There had to be some decorative parallel for her eyes but for all the words in his extensive vocabulary he could not, for all the logic in him, find something that fit her. He had always been adept at sorting women out in neat categories with tidy, labeled descriptions like scientific specimen; but with Mai nothing in his life was even remotely tidy.

Science became a foregone conclusion.

She remained silent and he glared at her, trying to prompt her into answering and she did.

"Yasu made me promise," She whispered urgently. "I - I couldn't betray something like that, could I? Besides I told you it was silly - "

"Silly?" He flung the answer back in her face, gently shaking her arm, disbelieved at her summing of the situation. "You _helped _him, Mai. I thought you had more spine than not accepting that."

She snorted lightly.

"I needed the money."

"Liar."

"Fine!" She huffed, raising her arms in surrender. "I did it because apparently I'm the embodiment of virtue and Christian will."

"You're insane." He shook his head in mild disbelief, letting go off her arm. "You're mad."

She gave a small laugh of amusement and began arranging the pots until the water boiled on the stove. "Now, now narcissist." Mai smiled wryly at him. "This can't be good. You're being redundant."

These days he couldn't understand his life at all, it had become a series of unpredictable encounters, impulses, impolite retorts, digressing thought processes.

"I suppose we should check off kind and compassionate from the list, right?" She turned her back to him, twisting her hair into a knot that rested at the base of her neck. "I would say generous is off as well."

"Hmm…" She was winning damn it all and he was providing her fodder for those absurd notions she played in her head. "I wouldn't be so confident."

"Now all that's left is wild." She grinned cheekily at him, relishing in the word. _"Wild."_

He hoped she wouldn't see that part of him. Ever. For the sake of his sanity.

"It's four in the morning, Mai." He took a seat at one of the stools near the working counter. "Whatever do you mean by coming out in _that?"_

His gaze lingered at her nightgown. The woman _ought _to wear something more… _covering. _

Then she moved to stand in the fire, mixing the tea around with something that seemed like a herb.

And he was tempted to avert his eyes and sigh in resignation.

_Not. The. Fire._

"I don't know what's wrong with you." She sniffed at a canister, frowning as she tried to determine the flavour. "My nightgown is perfectly acceptable."

He made a scoffing sound.

"Acceptable?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did you know that when you stand in the fire, everything becomes extremely transparent."

Mai dropped the canister.

Tea-leaves went skittering to the floor.

He tried not to show his surprise at the words he had just blurted - of course, he'd been observing this since the first day in the library but really, perhaps this would make her wear something concealing.

Oliver rather hoped not and then smirked at that risque thought. Funny, he never had one of those before. He had finally gone raving mad.

All he could do to complete this transformation was by writing a poem that reeked of rhapsody.

As if.

"Excuse me?!" She shrieked, turning red, moving away from the fire as she shrugged on that robe she had shed so quickly upon entering the kitchens. "What… were you… _staring?!"_

"That's a trick question." He inclined his head to the side in contemplation. "If I say yes, you would hit me with one of these utensils. If I say no, you would be disappointed."

"_Disappointed?_" He enjoyed how she gasped that word as if it was - an improbability.

"Of course." He smirked. "Every woman wants me, Mai. You'd be disappointed if I said no to _you."_

Good. Oliver watched the ever changing reactions playing on her face. At first her jaw dropped in surprise as she gaped at him, then she abruptly shut it, her face turning a blaring shade of red.

Then she moved.

"_Oh you!" _She lunged at him with her hands ready to pummel but he caught them effortlessly as she jerked against him. "_You. Pig-headed. Egotistical. Narcissistic - !"_

"Watch it, Taniyama." He warned indifferently, one corner of his mouth twisting into a smirk. "Or did I strike a nerve?"

"Ooooh." Mai made a frustrated sound, struggling to strike him anywhere her hands would reach but then she stopped and looked up at him, her lips tightened in a simper. "You wouldn't mind it, _Lord Davis, _if I take your mother's advice and - " She jerked her hands from his loosening grasp. " - kick you in the…"

He stepped back in alarm.

"Hmph." Slamming down a teacup in front of him, she turned away. "I'm going back upstairs. Good night to you!"

And he watched, sipping the tea in amusement as she marched her way towards the stairs, fists clutched at her sides. He thought he heard something that sounded like a very colourful swear word fly out her mouth but then again, Mai in a rage was a sight that was compulsory to behold.

She was undefined. An infinity he couldn't quite understand. A challenge.

Too bad she was going back to the village in one and a half week.

* * *

><p>"I look like a harlot."<p>

Fleur who had been repairing the hem of a crimson, velveteen gown looked up at Mai with a raised eyebrow; no doubt examining the extent of her vocabulary.

"Nonsense." The Duchess, however, was unfazed by her proclamation and waved a hand in the air. "Besides we're already here at the Tremayne's - you can't change into anything else now."

Mai narrowed her eyes but the effect was ruined when she struggled to turn with Fleur stepping on the hem.

"You did this, _purposefully._" She satisfied herself by pointing an accusatory finger at the Duchess' form in the mirror in front of her. "What if Na - I mean, Lord Davis - sees me in this?"

The Dowager walked calmly towards her. "My dear girl." She began. "The whole point of this exercise is to make _Noll _see you!"

Mai's eyes narrowed until they were slits.

"You. Are. Diabolical."

"I pride myself in it." The Duchess turned. "And after all, I don't see what's there to worry about. Noll isn't here yet. You can enjoy yourself and -" It was the Dowager's turn to narrow her eyes. " - aren't you feeling positively _daring _in that gown?"

Mai flushed and examined herself in the mirror.

She looked stronger. Bolder. _Volcanic._

She did not admit it.

Perhaps Mai had danced with every man in the room, she had yet to be certain of the fact but it must have been true because how could she have torn her gown at the hem otherwise? It was a good thing, Fleur was able to fix the tear.

"There, miss." Fleur stood back examining her handiwork. "Please don't dance more than two more. I don't think it can stand the strain."

Mai nodded, taking a deep breath as the Duchess held out a hand. It was yet too soon for her to face the glare of the lights ambushing her as she stepped out in the decorated hall swarming with posh aristocrats who looked at her, some in curiosity, others in acceptance. Some were less merciful for they thought she had ruined the chances of them and their daughters by snaring a Duke and taking the ton by storm out of nowhere.

They didn't know she was planning disaster. Twice, she had led two lordlings to the brink of disaster by making them trip over her feet during the dances but somehow she hadn't done it. _Twice! _Not that she was weak enough to go through with it but lordlings, young ones were not her taste. She knew how easy it was to bruise pride and shatter confidence at such a stage, having been on the end of it for many years. She couldn't repeat it to others, not if she could help that.

She was immersed in such a line of thought when she noticed Naru striding towards them, facial expression pleasantly arranged with an underlying tension to that half-smile on his face.

Trouble.

"He's here." She whispered faintly to the Duchess. "_He's here!"_

Dowager Duchess harrumphed like an annoyed mother.

"Do be calm." The Duchess turned away from the rapidly approaching form of her son and craned her neck to survey the crowd. "He can't change my mind about this dress."

Mai noticed how Naru's hard eyes glittered in a sinister fashion when he walked towards them.

"Good Evening, Mother."

Mai shivered at the ominous words; noting that he did not even bother to greet _her._

_Hmph._

He took a step towards the Duchess and stiffly bent to whisper something into her ear with chilling precision. With the same stiffness he straightened, his hawk-like eyes observing the crowd.

The Duchess paled and leaned towards Mai.

"Shawl." She croaked.

"I beg your pardon?"

The Duchess seemed to be struggling with her words.

"Go wear a shawl girl." She finally managed, rapidly fanning herself as she sent a worried glance to her son. "Now."

Mai thought it good for her health to do just as the Duchess bid.

That was how she found herself being escorted to supper, on the arm of Lord Davis, wearing a shawl over the _oh-so daring _dress. If she repulsed him that much - Mai thought dejectedly, her movements automatic as she slid into a chair - why did he bother to look out for her?

She glared at him and subtly stomped her heeled slipper on his foot when he settled next to her.

He snorted at her feeble attempt, twisting his face into a smile to hide his discomfort.

"Do that again, Mai -" He murmured. " - and face the consequences."

She decided to keep her indignation and feet to herself.

Supper began in full swing, conversation and wine flowed freely as the fifty or more guests laughed and talked of different topics. Mai was often sought out for her opinion but mostly she stayed quiet, choosing to concentrate on lobster soup instead of the politics or the gossip; Naru, however, was more sought after and he talked politics as if one was talking about weather - he smiled at the appropriate times, gave the appropriate answers and was asked for his opinions more than once.

She noticed how that perfunctory smile never once left his face. How hard it must be for him to adhere to all these silly rules when he could shun them and live how he wanted; not to be Prince Charming to the debutantes of London. More than once, she had been tempted to gouge the eyes of more than one simpering girl who fluttered her eyelashes at him.

But she stayed quiet and meek until the topic strayed to love.

"Love is overrated, ladies." Lord Everleigh proclaimed. "It is foolish to build one's life upon such a weak foundation, what do you think, Miss Taniyama?"

For the first time in the evening, Mai felt herself speaking, quite against her will.

"I don't believe so, my lord." She looked nervously at the aristocrats who stared at her down their noses. "I suppose the right kind of love can be the str-strongest foundation of all." Hurriedly she bowed her head and began concentrating on the stew in her plate.

She felt a depression overwhelm her; here she was, sitting with people she had served half her life and all they were doing, the snobs, was making fun of a sentiment that they had perhaps never in their life felt.

And of course _Naru_ wouldn't defend her!

_The coldhearted, indifferent ..._

"Love - " Lord Davenport snorted, cocking his head to one side as he forked the meat. " - is a sentiment for fools or for villains who need changing."

Lord Davenport was an Earl, a peer of the realm, never mind that he was a fashionable rake with more cynicism than intelligence.

The others hummed in approval, their affirmations accompanied by the pleasant tinkling of china and crystal with silver and Mai watched in sheer surprise as they all mocked love with their fashionable cynicism, a disillusionment she did not share in the least. Naru's gaze caught hers and she saw him raise an eyebrow in challenge.

He was challenging her to take a stand…

Her eyes widened as she processed the implication of that gesture.

_He wanted her to say something in opposition!_

But he should have known that she didn't have enough guts to stand up to a room full of wealthy people who would have no problem beheading her with their gossip and then throwing her out of a circle she had fraudulently made her way in.

That was before Naru subtly turned his head, an eyebrow arched dispassionately as if assessing whether she had it inside her or not.

Her shock dissipated and she felt the fire flare in her, a strange need to voice out what she truly thought simmered in her mind and she raised her chin high, calmly sipping her wine. They thought love was something for _her _class, for the commonplace. Well - it wasn't!

_No more lurking in the shadows._

"Do you know what I think, Lord Davenport?" She stared at the handsome, green-eyed rake in ill-concealed disgust. "Love really isn't about changing from selfish to selfless. Or from bad to good for that matter."

Fifty heads jerked upwards to stare at her in bewilderment. Her heart beat furiously but she had had enough of keeping those thoughts inside her head, enough of trying to pretend to be enough…

"It isn't?" Lord Davenport's knife hit the plate with a mocking clatter. "Really, Miss Taniyama what odd notions you entertain."

She felt an indignation swell inside her when she saw his leer.

Naru's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Of course, my lord." She bared her teeth in a lethal smile at the richly dressed snobs staring at her, challenging them to go against her. "It's rather about being so concerned for one person that you lose all opportunity to care for yourself."

Lord Davenport's emerald eyes narrowed at her.

"I would rather think _that _is why you have yet to experience love."

A silence ensued at her insinuation and then suddenly, every head in the dining room whirred to look at Naru.

He raised his wine glass and tipped it towards her in obvious salute.

The Duchess of Shibuya did the same.

_Oh my._

And she watched as every other person in the room did the same… for _her!_

"I stand corrected." Lord Davenport flashed her a quick, sly smile probably having calculated that he had just lost the verbal spar against her, once again back to his lecherous leers. "When such a pretty lady forces the point I must concede, should I not, Mai?"

Naru's eyes narrowed further still until they were glinting slits.

_Oh no..._

Mai knew that if she let this conversation continue anymore there could be a chance of sheer violence and bloodshed and she had no doubt that Naru would be the one to do the shedding.

Perhaps the narcissist had had too much to drink.

_Disaster would be a distraction._

She assessed the table for a victim and found one, Lord Everleigh was an Earl and an insult to him would perhaps ruin her reputation far more than anything.

Besides he was sitting beside her. Not much movement to do.

A glass of wine, one stomp on his fat feet and the man would squawk.

Her hand fastened against the stem of the crystal flute.

Her foot raised itself above his under the mahogany table.

She gritted her teeth and with a cry, lunged at the fat, bald man.

A splash.

"_Wha - ?!"_

A thud.

"_OW!"_

A howl.

"_Good God!"_

And then the chaos broke out.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_I don't know what to say for this part. I hope you all liked it. My heartfelt thanks to every single person who bothers to read, follow/favourite and review the story; believe me, it positively makes my dull day something to look forward to. Also from this time forth, I'm going to be putting up the correspondence between Gene, Naru and Luella in chronological order, so yeah... any suggestions would be welcome! _

_To the guest who talked about the Fleur moment from the last chapter: Well, it was more of the Fleur who is the Duchess' French maid from the novel by Tessa Dare on which this is loosely based. But yes, my whole perception of French and Fleur-named people, comes from Harry Potter :D_

_I'm also going to start editing this story from the beginning, so if you have any suggestions, any plot holes, grammatical errors etc please do point them out! I'll be really grateful. On another note; we're having writing awards in the fandom and we need your thoughts about how the process should be hosted so if you please, go to Snavej's profile ad visit the forum created for these purposes. I'm sure your thoughts would be much wanted for :)_

_Review. Suggest. Comment!_

**-bortoflyhigh-**


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